


Hunter of Hunters

by Magical_Barsign



Category: Ben 10 Series, Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Blood and Violence, Elements from two fandoms, F/M, HxH being the primary one, Language, Survival Game, a certain Ben 10 alien being secondary, creepers gonna creep, lots and lots of OCs!, nonromantic sexual relationship, original Nen powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9081976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Barsign/pseuds/Magical_Barsign
Summary: Annie Neptunia is an average 25-year-old barely scraping by in Yorknew City when suddenly one day, a robot alien named Slix Vigma forces her to participate in his all-new reality TV survival game, Hunter of Hunters. And she's the only participant who can't use Nen! To make matters worse, one of them is Hisoka Morow, and he's chosen to stalk her in order to intercept all of the other contestants...or so he claims.





	1. The Worst Day of My Life

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! First fic I've managed to post here. I've already completed the first drafts of all 12 chapters of this crazy ride, so all I have to do is look over them all and release them as I finalize everything. Most likely, I'll post one chapter a week. Kind of like how a typical anime series nowadays does anyway, hahaha.

_Pain._

_I could feel someone reaching their hand into my chest, as if planting something there._

_Someone…? More like...some kind of monster…_

_Screams abound around me. Were there other people watching? Why were they so far away?_

_It's almost like I was being experimented on...or maybe I was the first to go in some sort of sick competition._

_Was I dying? I couldn't tell. I should be dead from the shock, but for some reason, I wasn't in as much pain as I thought. In fact, I was feeling sleepy…_

_The monster’s face appeared in front of me once more, and it occurred to me that it had...four eyes…_

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Whoaaa!”

I jumped out of bed and slammed the alarm off, quickly getting dressed. As much as I would have liked to stay there and try to remember what just happened, I had to get to work at like six in the morning. Can't really dwell on what seemed like a weird dream or something, especially since I was already forgetting a lot of it by the second.

Upon leaving my apartment, I made a run for it, not really having a car or even a bike. The traffic in Yorknew City in Shiganshina District was always a nightmare anyway, and my workplace was so close that I could actually get there faster on foot as a result.

Besides, I had enough bills to pay as it was without having to add car bills and insurance on top of all that. And it's not like my two part-time jobs even paid that much either.

Though by this point, I really couldn't complain. It was a combination of my bad life choices with the fact that my parents are both dead that led me here in the first place. Not to mention the fact that I was so focused on getting better at drawing and writing that I totally forgot to think about how I was supposed to make a living after college. Oops.

I managed to reach the shopping center with five minutes to spare, and the sun was just barely over the horizon. Didn't really have much of a choice since my job at the local retail store called Plushie World scheduled me for this morning, while the restaurant I worked in called The Salted Tea after that ate up my afternoon. And today, I was going to have two 6-hour shifts. Hah. Good thing both of those places were in the same shopping center to begin with!

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was worse than usual. At Plushie World, my manager was yelling at me again for forgetting to update like one sale sign (even though I swear I got them all the other day), and at The Salted Tea, this group of assholes tried to trip me again. So of course I’d be in a pretty bad mood after that. At least I managed to get a 20 minute break in the middle.

“Hey Annie!”

I looked up to see another girl chilling in the break room. I waved at her. “Oh, hey Selena.” 

She was still in high school and nearly a decade younger than me, but she was easier for me to talk to than most of the other employees in the restaurant, let alone the customers. She must have noticed how irritated I must have looked, because she immediately stood up and asked, “Oh my god, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just those assholes at Table 5 again.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. Those guys from the rich part of town. I swear, if you have enough money, you can change the laws here! Like how they changed our city’s name to ‘Yorknew City.’ You don't just change a city name like that! I mean, what's next? Mute City?”

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. It was always so entertaining to talk to Selena. She might still be in high school, but I swear, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn't have lasted this long in this crazy city with my sanity intact.

After a bit of back and forth, a report on the news on the big screen in the room caught our attention. “...In other news, the 28-year-old serial killer known as Hisoka Morow has been sighted in Yorknew City again in Shiganshina District. He has not killed anyone yet, however, residents living in the area are advised to be careful as they go about their day.”

Our eyes widened, and we looked at each other. And then at the exact same time, we said, “Oh shit.”

“Annie, that’s where your apartment is, isn’t it?” asked Selena, looking very concerned. “That’s like, right next to this restaurant!”

“Yeah...ah, jeez. As if this day couldn’t get any worse.” I rubbed my temples. “There just had to be a serial killer running around, hadn’t there?”

I looked up at the screen and examined the image of the guy on the news report. His red dyed hair immediately caught my attention, along with his face paint, making him look kind of like a clown or jester, except that he didn’t have a rubber nose or anything. In fact, if it weren’t for the creepy expression on his face and his thin, yellow eyes, he wouldn’t have looked that bad. Still, though…

“Hisoka Morow, huh…?” I mused. “I’ll be sure to look out for him. He looks like a piece of work.”

“No kidding.” Selena nodded. “This area of the city is crazy, though. Last year, there were a bunch of serial killers dressed as clowns too, and now this guy.”

“Really? Wow. I guess I wouldn’t know. I mean, I only moved here last year myself. Probably after all that went down.”

For the rest of the shift, I couldn’t get Hisoka’s face out of my head, nor the fact that a creepy serial killer was apparently prowling around the area where I lived. It totally distracted me to the point where I accidentally dropped a glass of water on the rich assholes at Table 5 and *really* got chewed out by my manager after that. Urgh. I mean, I guess one would argue that those assholes had it coming to them, but on the other hand, I really don’t think the manager yelling at me was worth it. Getting yelled at by two managers in one day. Man. This day was even worse than usual. But I had no choice but to grin and bear it.

At long last, I got to go home, and I was dead tired. As for the whole serial killer thing, well, I just wanted to go home as fast as possible so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it any more. 

“See ya, Selena! Be careful on your way home.”

“I should be saying that to you, Annie.” Selena smirked, even though she was as dead tired as I was. “You’ve got your can of pepper spray handy, right?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Truth to be told, I’ve never actually had to use it at all, not even ever since I came to this city, so I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to use it properly if I need to. Too late to worry about that now, though. “But you know what I mean, Selena. You’ve got school tomorrow! And homework—”

“Pfft, I’ve already finished my homework in school earlier today. I’m good to go.”

Hah. School. Sometimes I miss how easy high school was and wish I could go back and redo a few things. Not like I had the time or the money to go back to college, though. I was struggling enough as it was trying to survive. Just like any other normal person, for that matter.

“Well, sweet~.” I smiled. “You’re already more motivated than I was. Okay, for reals, now. See ya!”

By the time I had finally left The Salted Tea, it was 7 pm and starting to get dark. However, since this was the near the end of May and close to the longest day of the year, there was still plenty of light to at least see with.

Of course, there was still that report about that serial killer still in my mind, so I walked as quickly as I could along the sidewalks. The less time I spend out here, the better. At the same time, though, would a serial killer really try to pick people off if they were walking with a bunch of other pedestrians next to busy city streets with lots of traffic? I sure hoped not! They’d have to be suicide bombers or something. ...Which really wasn’t much better, but still…

I shook my head. I didn’t have time to dwell on morbid thoughts like that. Gosh knows life was hard enough as it was without worrying about the crazies who could kill you in the world. Besides, I had two more shifts tomorrow very much like today. Fat load of free time I had to relax and draw back at home when these shifts were constantly getting in the way. And yet I needed to work these jobs to even survive...good gosh, if only my parents told me this was what my life was going to be like for me when I graduated college, maybe I would have tried avoiding this much earlier. And now they’re dead. Wonderful.

Ah, I was getting off track again. I turned my attention back to the sidewalk in front of me and continued on my way, only to notice that there suddenly weren’t as many people as there usually were. Weird. Was it always like this?

Probably. I mean, there aren’t as many people when I get closer to my apartment, after all, which was natural. I turned the corner, knowing the rest of the way on how to get there, and…

There stood right in front of me a six-foot-tall man dressed as a jester, just chilling in the middle of the sidewalk. He had bright red hair, and when he turned to me, I could see clearly from his yellow eyes that he was the exact same serial killer that was shown on the news earlier. Hisoka.

Oh, shit.

“Hello, Annie. ♣”

Shit shit shit shit shit.

I didn’t even hesitate to turn and run like crazy in the opposite direction. How the hell did this guy know my name!? How did he even know where I lived!? No time to think about that now, though. The fact was that if he knew this much about me, he was clearly planning to kill me. Why, I didn’t know. I just had to get away from him no matter what.

That being said, it wasn’t until I had stumbled into a wide open area with a basketball court that I noticed that I was totally lost and had no idea how to get back home. More importantly, there was a serial killer on my tail, and where was everyone?

“HELP!” I shouted. “SOMEBODY—!”

A card whizzed in front of me and smashed through the chain-link fence surrounding the basketball court with way more force than any playing card should have had, and when I turned around, sure enough, there was the creepy jester leisurely walking down the way I came. 

“Oh no, don’t run away! I’m only here to help you.”

“Like HELL you are!” I shouted back, reaching into my purse for the pepper spray. That asshole could easily kill me with arm muscles like those, or worse. But I had to do something. If I incapacitated him, even for a moment, that would be all I needed to get away.

“I would explain, but time is of the essence. And I can see what you’re about to do. So you’ll just have to trust me for now, won’t you? ♦” 

I don’t know how to explain what happened next. He pointed at me, and...well, I could feel the front of my shirt being dragged towards him, but I couldn’t see what was doing it! Did he plant a tiny wire or something? Was he psychic? Before I knew it, he was already only two feet in front of me, and reared his other arm back, armed with another playing card.

This was it. I was going to die. I was really going to die. He would slit my throat and that would be that. I braced for impact.

Only to hear a sound right behind me and someone else shouting, “OW! What the hell!?”

I quickly looked behind me to see a girl with incredibly long brown hair who looked like she was in middle school appear out of the shadows, clutching her side, where the playing card that Hisoka apparently threw fluttered behind her. “Hisoka, you sneaky little bastard…!”

“Aaah. I knew one of you were trailing her, but what a surprise! It’s you, Jenna Anderson. ♥” 

I looked between the two of them back and forth. What the frack were they talking about? How in the world would this creepy serial killer and this girl practically half his age know each other? 

“Cut the crap, asshole. She’s right there for you to kill. So why are you defending her?” But before either of us had any time to reply, she interrupted herself. “Oh, oh! Let me guess! You just want to get laid so that she’ll—”

“Oh? You sound jealous, my dear. Do you want in on the—?”

“FUCK OFF!!”

The girl threw another knife at us, and I screamed, but Hisoka blocked the attack effortlessly with no concern at all.

He then continued. “Anyway, isn’t it obvious? She’s the only one in this game who doesn’t have any Nen at all. So naturally, all of you would want to try and kill her first. Except me, of course. I crave a challenge, you see. ♦ So I figured if I were to stick around her like so, you guys would eventually come after her, and just as surely as you came, I was right.”

This was it. This was an opening I needed. I couldn’t reach my pepper spray, but I could do the next best thing and kick him in the nuts before getting away, shouting, “You guys are BOTH fucking crazy!! Leave me alone!”

But of course the girl wasn’t going to be shaken that easily. “Oh no you don’t!!”

Oh shit. She was now throwing a barrage of knives at me. Where in the world was she keeping those things? She clearly didn’t have enough pockets on her to hide them all! 

The good news was, Hisoka apparently recovered enough to block a lot of the knives. The bad news, one of them stabbed me in the ankle. 

“OW!! Shit, shit, shit…!” I collapsed to the sidewalk, which of course opened up all sorts of scuff marks over my skin. As if I needed to bleed from more places than where I was stabbed in the freaking ankle!

Hisoka stared down at me, looking in mock concern. “Oh dear. If only you let me help you like I said, then maybe you wouldn’t be in this pickle. ♠ Just a thought, hmm, Annie?”

I clutched my bleeding knees and looked up at him like he was insane, which he most likely was. “How the hell can you say that at a time like this? She’s gonna kill me!”

“OUT OF THE WAY, ASSHOLE! SHE’S MINE!”

This time, instead of throwing knifes as usual, the girl shot a pink laser beam from her knife and directed it at us. I swear to god, that was what I saw. And I thought for sure, there was no way Hisoka could block that. We were both going to get hit, and though I wasn’t sure if he was going to survive, I knew I sure as hell wouldn’t.

More confusingly, Hisoka didn’t even look like he was moving to block the attack, but instead held his arms out as though to catch it. I was going to shout at him for taking such a suicidal action and letting me get hit, but all of this was happening so fast that all I could do was brace for impact yet again.

“Hmm...you must be a Conjurer, my dear Jenna. ♣”

What?

I opened my eyes, and sure enough, the laser beam had just stopped in midair, inches in front of my face. What’s more, it looked as though it were being held back by some sort of invisible rubbery band of sorts. 

What.

The actual.

Hell.

The girl seemed a bit perturbed, and she squinted her eyes. “Tch. Of course you’d have something like that. But try blocking all of these!”

I don’t think I could properly process what was going on next, because it all happened so fast. The girl launched several lasers in a row from all sorts of angles, but Hisoka managed to send them all ricocheting right back at her with that invisible rubber band of sorts, and she managed to dodge them all—except that last one, which ended up grazing her leg, so now she was in the same boat as me.

“AAAUGH! Fuck, this can’t be happening…!” she swore, clutching her leg. “After I worked so hard to get that attack to work at all…!”

“That’s precisely why.” Hisoka finally strode forward. “You’re a Conjurer, so of course Emitter based attacks would be the hardest for you to learn and come out the weakest. And now you’ve wasted all your potential. What a shame. ♠ Normally I’d spare you in case you got stronger, but I see that is not going to happen.”

He smirked. “And, of course...we are in a survival game, after all. ♦”

“SCREW YOU!!”

A ton of knives appeared out of thin air around her, all aimed towards Hisoka, but then they just clattered towards the ground. Along with a river a blood...and then I saw Hisoka had stabbed her in the side with one of his cards. She then collapsed to the ground.

“Aaaaah...even after I dragged it out for that long, it was still not satisfying. ♠ What a shame.”

Right when I was wondering whether or not Hisoka was going to try and kill me after that out of his said disappointment, the entire world suddenly became fuzzy and twisted out right in front of me. Before I could wonder whether I was going to faint, it then reformed to reveal another location entirely. It took me a second to realize that maybe I had just been teleported. Or maybe I was going insane.

What I saw made me *wish* I was going insane, though.

I knew this place. It was in my dream last night. Except...now I was starting to wonder if maybe it wasn’t a dream at all.

It looked like the inside of an alien ship of sorts, or at least, that was the only way I could describe it. I certainly hadn’t seen clean metallic wall and floor designs that glowed a dark red anywhere else I’d been to. And there were 12 other sealed off escape pod-looking chambers around the room, counting the one I was apparently in myself. In those chambers, I could see the silhouettes of what looked to be several other people, with two chambers empty. One of them just opened to reveal the dead body of that girl who Hisoka just killed. And I realized that the one literally right next to mine held Hisoka himself.

But that figure in the center of the room...I had seen that four-eyed alien robot before. I remembered him the most.

“Greetings once again, everyone”, it said, sounding just as cold and creepy as Hisoka did, if not even more so. “It seems as though the game has just begun, and yet we already have our first victim. Wonderful, wonderful~. Here’s the instant playback, for those of you who weren’t there.”

A hologram then popped up in front of the windows of all of our sealed off chambers. I gasped when I recognized it as the place on the sidewalk of the streets right outside the basketball court where that battle just took place. Where the heck was the camera that was filming all of this? I certainly didn’t notice anything like it during the encounter. Maybe it was too far away for me to notice. But I wasn’t sure how that was the case since everything the three of us we were saying could be heard perfectly clearly.

At least this way, I got a much better view of how Hisoka managed to kill that girl. Jenna, was it? Speaking of which, were they talking about a survival game or something?

I could hear very faint screams and shouts of disgust from the people in all the other chambers, muffled by the fact that there were thick metallic walls between us all. But I could tell they were saying things like,

“Oh my god!”

“Why are we in this fucked up game, again!?”

“That’s Hisoka out there! HISOKA! The serial killer!”

“He’s killed so many people that it’s nothing to him! This game is totally rigged!”

“Fuck you, Slix Vigma! Fuck you!”

Slix Vigma? That name also sounded...familiar…

I could understand how they were panicking that much. I would be too. In fact, I was kind of surprised that I was being as calm as I was. Maybe I was more confused than anything else, as well as in a state of shock. I mean, aliens? Here? I always thought they’d be fictional characters that I enjoyed writing in my stories, but apparently they’re real?

Of course, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sort of dread as to what this survival game thing was all about. In fact, I could already guess what it was. There were originally twelve of us. Two of them probably died already, and the other, Jenna, was killed by Hisoka. If I was in one of these things, and if everyone else was panicking at the thought of having to face him, as well as killing each other in general…

The four eyed alien robot then descended right in front of me on his levitating platform. “You, Annie, were scheduled to be the first to drop out of the game. Aside from that Scott fool who tried to defy me earlier.”

“He was my husband, you monster!” I heard muffled from far away.

Oh shit. Were there people in this game who were related here too?

“So as a result, I put you under anesthesia and kept your memories suppressed so that when you did die, you would do so without knowing anything. However, miracle of miracles, you have managed to curry one contestant’s favor and turned the tide of battle, despite having no Nen powers yourself. So I shall explain it to you fully, this time.”

I held my head. “So that dream wasn’t a dream at all…?”

“I can see why you would think of it that way. But alas, it was not.”

He—I think it was a he?—rose up in the air and then announced, “My name is Slix Vigma, and I run this ship. This is the Megacruiser, a place where only the finest in combat entertainment around the galaxy is held and broadcast. And so one day, I thought of a new survival game that I have entitled Hunter of Hunters. Last night, I placed bombs inside of everyone’s hearts here and started said game.”

I gasped and placed a hand over my heart. I definitely remembered him doing something like that. So that was what it was! But a bomb? 

“How…?” was all I could squeak out.

“With my own Nen powers, of course. Imagine my surprise to see that there was another species in the galaxy who were capable of wielding it too! Of course, it seems it only appears in one in a hundred in your species on average, and those who are incapable of it tend to not know of its existence.”

I paused, trying to take it all in. “...I mean, I sometimes hear things about how some people are capable of doing super awesome things, but I didn’t know that’s what it was...like magic. I thought that was just something you got for becoming a Hunter and getting a Hunter’s License…”

“Ah, but there are far many more humans on this planet who are capable of Nen who are not, as you say, Hunters. Even though I call this game Hunter of Hunters, I assure you, this was before I became aware of the existence of Hunters in your world and therefore has no correlation. Anyway, the point is, I used Nen to plant bombs in all of your hearts that are scheduled to go out in three of your months.”

“WHAT!?”

Okay, now I was feeling it. I staggered back. “Three months…?” We all only had three months to live? Jeez, I sometimes joked about what it would be like to just drop dead and not have to worry about paying bills anymore, but not like this!

“Indeed. Furthermore, there are additional restrictions. If you travel more than a 50 mile radius around your Yorknew City in any direction, it will go off. If you try to explain this power to anyone in detail, it will go off. If you try to see a Nen Exorcist to remove this, it will go off. And finally, as Scott Diamond found out earlier the hard way, if you try to defeat me in an attempt to get me to deactivate them myself, I can make them explode early at will.”

I fell to my knees. No, this couldn’t be happening…

“And there is only one way for you to get out of this alive. Out of the ten contestants here remaining, you need to be the last one standing. Only then will I deactivate the bomb and let you live and resume your business.”

At least there was a way out of this. But at the same time…

“But...everyone here has those magic Nen powers you were talking about, don’t they…?” A part of me noted that Slix Vigma said ten when I only saw nine people, but I was too shocked out of my mind by more important matters like that.

“Indeed they do. In fact, I had specifically chosen from the population of Nen users in this city for the purposes of this survival game. As well as you, of course. But I have already explained why earlier.”

Yeah. Good going there, man. Way to totally not be a dick.

“As the only contestant with no Nen powers whatsoever, I am curious to see how long you can keep this up, Annie Neptunia. Kill or be killed. Survive until the end, whatever it takes, and provide us all with the spectacle of a lifetime!”

I’m not sure if I could process what was going on after that. I think my mind just fell into a daze of shock and despair, much like a literal wall of darkness was closing in on me on all sides. I think maybe I heard some of the contestants complain how it’s all the same crap they heard before and that he should just go die in a fire, but I did make out the fact that a lot of them were thinking about targeting me now since I was apparently Slix Vigma’s sudden favorite. It didn’t occur to me that maybe I should memorize what they look like if they were all going to be after me, but the lighting in there was very poor anyway. What could I do?

The next thing I realized, I was back out on the street with Hisoka, just reeling from everything that Slix Vigma had just told me. Oh yeah, also, I was still bleeding, although most of it had healed, for the most part. Shit.

And speaking of Hisoka…

“Aaaaah...what a lovely game! ♥ I really should thank Slix Vigma. Even more excuses to have utterly delightful battles with other powerful Nen users…♦”

Fuuuuuuuuck.

He was a contestant in this game too, wasn’t he?

“Speaking of which, Annie, did you hear? They’re all coming to get you. ♦” 

Of course, what I was more concerned about was the fact that there was a super creepy serial killer literally three feet away from me who could kill me right now if he wanted to. I tried to scramble away, but I was still covered in cuts and bruises, and oh yeah, there was that ankle of mine that still hurt like a bitch. But at least I could still put weight on it. The stab wound thankfully wasn’t that deep.

“Oh, but don’t worry! I’m not going to kill you. At least, not yet, anyway. ♣ You don’t have any Nen powers, after all, so killing you right now would be no fun at all.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “How is supposed to make me feel any better…?”

“Because! You’d get to look forward to witnessing me...as I relish in the blood of my opponents and have the most...delicious, exciting, satisfying battles I’ve ever had in a long time. Oooooh...I can’t wait...I can hardly wait. ♥”

He might have just been standing there, gazing at me in euphoria, but all I felt was dread and horror the likes I had never seen. It wasn’t enough that I had to have that weird dream and a lousier day at my two jobs than usual.

I had to not only be stalked by this guy and nearly shanked by some girl, but then find out that not only that dream was apparently real, but that the alien robot from it had placed a bomb in my heart that would go out within three months at most. And that there were nine other people who I had to be the last one standing among in order to survive this ordeal. Also, all nine of those people were capable of incredibly insane magical powers.

And oh yeah.

One of them was Serial Killer Hisoka. Who was probably the only one of us who was acting like this was his birthday, Christmas, and the second coming of Christ all at the same time!

It was official.

Today was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst day of my life.

**To be continued...**


	2. My Own Personal Stalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie runs home, trying to deny the fact that she had just been thrown into a death game with 11 superpowered Nen users, but Hisoka shows up at her doorstep the next morning. He stalks her throughout the day as she tries to quit both her part-time jobs, and the two of them end up in a battle against another contestant who figured out where she worked.

I had to get away.

I had to make a run for it.

It was all just a dream, wasn’t it? Just a terrible, terrible nightmare. Or an incredibly elaborate prank. One of the two. This couldn’t be happening.

At most, I could accept the fact that I had nearly been shanked by some middle school girl in an alleyway, and for whatever reason, the serial killer Hisoka thought he’d save my life. Or he didn’t actually save me so much as his real target was that girl because she had magical powers. And he apparently liked challenges because he was that strong.

But not whatever fever dream that happened after that. No robot aliens, nor any survival games, or the fact that apparently I had like three months to live or some shit? The point was, I was going to run back home to my apartment and I was going wake up in my bed and find out this was just some terrible dream.

Even if with every desperate step I took, it felt like more knives were slicing into my left foot where I got stabbed. Which fittingly made sense. I mean, normally I’d call someone for help, but the only one nearby was Hisoka, and he was the one person I wanted to get as far away from as possible. It didn’t matter if my foot stung like hell if it meant I could get away from that insane psychopath.

Thankfully, it didn’t look like he was following me, so I ran up to my apartment door and slammed it shut, rushing into bed as soon as I could. I was vaguely aware of the fact that I may have been trailing in a little bit of blood along the way, but that kind of thing didn’t matter with everything that had happened so far. Besides, it was no big deal, right? I would deal with it in the morning.

\---------------------------

I woke up the next morning to my ankle still throbbing with pain, and then I remembered the whole ‘nearly getting shanked’ thing. Oh, right. I probably should have put some antibiotics and a huge bandaid over it, shouldn’t I? Well, I guess I was reeling from the shock more than anything else. Whoops.

So I went ahead and did that, and then remembered that I had another couple shifts at The Salted Tea and Plushie World today just like yesterday. Meh, my foot was still fine enough to walk, but I had planned to explain to my managers that I wouldn’t be able to do much, but I still wanted to work because gosh knows I needed the money to pay the rent and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go to a hospital around here. Found out the hard way how much they overcharge for even the most minor of things.

I got all of my things and was ready to head out the door, so I opened it, and—

“Hello, Annie. ♥”

A certain six-foot-tall creepy jester guy was standing right in front of me.

“FUCK!!” I shouted before slamming the door in his face and reaching in my bag for the pepper spray. “Hisoka, what the HELL are you doing here!?”

His voice was muffled due to the whole door being in the way, but I could still tell what he was saying. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already! I’m here to fight off the other contestants for you in the survival game?”

Oh.

Oh right, the survival game.

Shiiiiiit.

I sighed. “I would have preferred that I didn’t remember. Or that the whole thing was just some twisted idea of a prank.” I gritted my teeth. “And how can I be so sure that you’re not just going to slit my throat the moment my back is turned, anyway? Huh? I mean, you’re a well known serial killer!”

“Well, if I wanted to, I probably could have done it already. ♦”

Huh. He had a point.

“Besides, if I wasn’t mistaken, you looked like you were headed to work. Are you going to quit your jobs? That would make sense, knowing how someone like you thinks.”

I paused. “...How did you know I had more than one job?”

“Ah yes. Slix Vigma told everyone each other’s names. And with just your name, Annie Neptunia, I was able to figure out where you worked via this little thing called the Internet. And if I was able to figure that out, then surely so can the others. Therefore, I would suggest that you quit those jobs. Unless you’re okay with innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, that is~.”

I grumbled, not really liking this reality. “...Fine. I think I might have enough money to pay the rent for the next three months.”

“Money?” he interrupted. “If it’s money you need, I could help you out with that. I do have a Hunter License, after all—”

“NOPE! Nope nope nope nope nope,” I cut him off as fast as I could. “I’m fine, I swear!” Like hell I was going to take money from a freaking serial killer, particularly one who somehow managed to get a Hunter License. Wasn’t the Hunter Exam designed to be so insanely hard that crazy psychopaths like this guy wouldn’t get one and abuse its benefits? Apparently it didn’t do its job that well!

“Are you sure~?”

“Yes! Jeez!”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, getting tired of dealing with this smug son of a bitch. “Where was I? Oh yeah. My jobs. I’ll try to explain it to them so that if I do somehow survive this crazy game, I can get back to work right after that. Yeah. I’ll just put in for a three month long vacation. I’ve seen some people do it before.”

Finally, I opened the door, but only by a tiny crack. “More importantly, though...why are you still out here where everyone can see you? You’re a known serial killer!”

He laughed. “Ha ha. I’d expect you to be more concerned about yourself now!”

“I *am* concerned! About how maybe someone might call the police on you, and they might try to shoot you and get me in the crossfire! Or something!”

“Relax. You know as well as I that I can handle something like that. ♦”

I threw up my arms. “Aaagh, whatever! Fine, do whatever you want. Now get out of my way. I’ve gotta explain what’s going on to my bosses.”

I hadn’t even gotten as far as the stairs before he added behind me, “Just be sure not to explain the situation too accurately, or else…”

“I know, I know! Stupid Slix Vigma and his magical Nen time bombs…” I grumbled.

\---------------------------

Unlike yesterday, my first shift was at The Salted Tea, but unfortunately for me, it looked like it would be harder to quit that job than my other one at Plushie World, particularly because it was a small restaurant as opposed to a large retail store; therefore having fewer employees and they’d be more affected as a result. Thankfully, as soon as I showed them my knife injury, they were only too quick to let me have an extended break in order to recover. Particularly when I explained to them about nearly being shanked on the way home yesterday. Yeah, I wasn't able to mention the survival game, but honestly, if I had a hard time believing it, then they certainly wouldn't have at all. And I was not about to have my chest explode and for me to drop dead right in front of them to prove it.

I guess I still had to explain this to Selena somehow, since she was the one person whom I’d miss the most. And speaking of which...

“Annie, holy shit! Was it true that someone tried to shank you yesterday?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, kicking back in my chair in the break room. “I know you're in high school, Selena, but do you know a girl named Jenna Anderson?”

“Can't say I do. Though she probably came from my old middle school. That place had the worst kids around. Even the girls! Especially the girls.” Selena shuddered, as if remembering something terrible. “Anyway, how did you get out of there?”

I took a deep breath. “Selena, you are not going to believe this. Hisoka saved me!”

Selena just stared at me, trying to process what I just said. “Wait, Hisoka? As in, Hisoka Morow, the serial killer from the news?”

“What other people named Hisoka do you know around here?” I deadpanned. “Not exactly a common name.”

“No kidding. A pretty weird one too. Then again, there are a lot of people with weird names out there.”

I nodded. “But yeah. What with this foot injury and Hisoka scaring the crap out of me and nearly getting shanked, I’m gonna have to take a bit of a break from work. Maybe I’ll see you again in three months, maybe not. We’ll see.”

She blinked in surprise. “What do you mean, maybe not…?”

Oh crap. I couldn’t mention the survival game.

“Er, what I meant to say was, I’ll be back in three months, don’t worry! I’ve just gotta take it easy for now.”

“Three months does seem a bit long for an ankle injury, particularly if you can still walk like that…”

I quickly got up from my seat. “Oh, look at the time! Our break’s almost over, gotta go~.”

Pfft. I have no idea if Selena actually bought a bald faced lie like that one, but what choice did I have? I had to offer some explanation as to why I’d be gone for that long. Maybe forever, who knows? Especially if I was, well, oh yeah! Killed!

At least I managed to get through the rest of my shift just fine. I figured I at least owed it to them that much to at least finish my shift, and thankfully, they just put me to washing dishes so I wouldn’t have to keep walking around everywhere as a waitress like usual.

Well, one shift down, another to go at Plushie World. I carefully poked my head out of the doors of The Salted Tea and made sure Hisoka wasn’t hanging around being a stalker or anything. I mean, I guess I couldn’t be sure whether he actually followed me all the way to work or not, but even if he didn’t, he knew the name of the restaurant, which meant that he could camp out here as long as he wanted.

But of course, if he knew I worked here and Plushie World, then that meant that any of the other contestants could find out too. I had to get out of here fast.

I swiftly exited the doors and tried to act as natural as I could, but I wasn’t even halfway down the sidewalk of the restaurant before some teenage boy started coming my way. Normally I wouldn’t have even bothered worrying, except for the fact that he waved and said, “Hey, Miss?”

Okay…? This was weird. I tried not to let my concerns show. Maybe he was just needing to ask for directions or whatever.

“Yeah? What’s up?” I tried to sound as natural as possible.

“Hey, so I’m new here, and I was wondering where this store called Plushie World was. Think you could help me out?”

“Huh..?” I was taken aback, especially since that was where I was going at that very moment. “Plushie World is right there, literally the biggest store in this entire shopping center. How could you…?”

Wait…

OH FUCKING SHIT!! He was another contestant, wasn’t he!?

Before I knew it, I was blown back and launched far away…and then somehow changed direction in midair and landed amidst a pile of leaves in a tree before a certain someone caught me.

“My my, Annie. I can never leave you alone, can I? ♥”

“Hisoka…?” I barely registered the fact that he was practically glomping me before I shoved him away in terror. “WAAAAGH! What the fuck…? How…? What…?”

“That boy was Garrett Buchanan, another Nen user, and one in the survival game too. ♣ A fellow Transmuter, like myself. Surely you haven’t forgotten what everyone looks like from Slix Vigma’s ship, have you?”

I grimaced. “Yeah, well, I was kind of freaking out over the fact that I was nearly shanked that day, you showed up, and oh yeah, that ALIENS ARE APPARENTLY REAL AND NOW ONE OF THEM HAS DRAGGED US ALL IN THIS CRAZY SURVIVAL GAME AND I’M GONNA DIE IN THREE MONTHS, IF NOT LIKE TODAY!!”

He interrupted me by shoving my head down while looking out of the tree. “Ssh. Looks like he’s onto us. Very well. Now’s as good a time as any to take him out~.”

I blinked. “Wait, what are you—?”

Then he leapt out of the tree while dragging me along with him, and I was all, “AAAAAAAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

Suddenly, the spot where we were in the tree burst into flames before then exploding and swallowing up the entire section we were in and disappearing, leaving a crisp, clean burnt hole behind.

The boy leapt back when me and Hisoka landed right in front of him, trying to get some distance. “Shit, I almost got you guys! This sucks.”

Hisoka chuckled. “Of course a Transmuter like yourself would try a tactic like that on her. I should know. ♦”

I looked between them back and forth. “Wait, are you saying that both of you guys can fight with invisible things?”

“As a manner of speaking, yes. Our friend Garrett here can not only generate magma, but make it invisible. He almost got you with a magma eruption attack right below where you were standing, and if I didn’t attach my Bungee Gum to you in time, you would have been toast. Literally!”

I should have understood everything he was saying, and I did, but all I could respond with was, “Wait...Bungee Gum? You mean like the actual gum?”

“No, dumbass,” said Garrett, dropping the polite pretense. “This guy named his special attack after his favorite brand of gum. It’s a lot more powerful than that, too. Of course, given how you can’t use Nen, you can’t even see what either of our attacks look like, so SUCK ON THIS!”

Once again, Hisoka dodged something I couldn’t see and leapt so high into the air that I nearly got vertigo. He landed not too far away from the entrance of The Salted Tea...and right then, Selena had just exited through the doors.

She stopped in place and froze upon seeing three things. One, the fact that I was still there. Two, the fact that Hisoka was there at all. Three, that Hisoka was carrying me along and that we looked like we were in a huge battle.

“ANNIE!? And is that—Hisoka!?”

“SELENA, STAY BACK!” I yelled. “It’s not safe here!”

“What—what’s going on, Annie!?”

Before I could even respond, Hisoka leapt out of the way and on top of a building across from The Salted Tea. I was vaguely aware of the air exploding around where we were and Selena screaming from the impact, but it didn’t look like she was singed too badly. I think. I hope.

I had to get Garrett’s attention away from Selena somehow. If he figured out she was a friend of mine...then forget about me being killed, I’d be PISSED if any of my best friends were caught in the crossfire of these crazy survival game battles!

But before the teenage boy could get very far, Hisoka already threw a playing card right in front of him to get his attention. “Where are you looking? Eyes up here. ♦ Your fight is with her.”

Garrett snorted. “Hah. I’m not falling for that. If I hold Annie’s friend hostage, it’ll be easier to kill her, and I’m totally gonna do it!”

Selena tried to get away, but an explosion appeared right in front of her, and she screamed as she fell to the ground. “What the hell!?”

“Don’t even think about taking another step!” Garrett glared at her. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Then Hisoka threw a playing card at Garrett’s wrist, chopping clean into it and spilling his blood. “OWW! Son of a…!” At least now he finally stopped going after Selena and turned to look at us.

“I should warn you, my boy. You’re not the only one who knows everyone’s names and faces in this game, Garrett Buchanan. If you kill her, well...let’s just say that I’ll pay your mother a visit.”

Hisoka then flipped Garrett the bird. “If you know what I mean. ♣”

Garrett flew into a full on rage, and he leapt right at us apparently using whatever invisible exploding magma powers he had to boost himself to our level. “OH MY GOD! LEAVE MY MOM ALONE, YOU SICKO!!”

I mean, on one hand, I was grateful that Hisoka seriously helped me out of a jam there, but on the other hand, we now had an incredibly angry Garrett on our tails.

And now we were jumping from building to building, dodging the invisible magma explosions that were behind us and probably making a huge spectacle to everyone on the ground below. Though as for me, what I was most concerned with was the fact that we were moving at incredibly high speeds through the air way high above the ground and the only thing that was preventing me from being incinerated or falling below with a huge splat was the serial killer crazy joker guy holding onto me with his apparently super sharp fingernails.

“AAAAAH I’M GONNA DIE, I’M GONNA DIE, I’M GONNA DIE”

“I told you, Annie, you’re not going to die. At least, not yet~.” Against all odds, despite the crazy scene all around us, Hisoka wasn’t breaking a sweat at all, and remained as calm as ever.

“AGAIN, HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER? AND WHERE ARE WE GOING, ANYWAY?”

“A place where fire-based Nen, as well as fire in general, has no effect, of course.”

I looked ahead and saw that we were very quickly headed for a pond in the middle of a park in the city. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes~.”

“Oh no, you are not drowning us in the pond, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO”

He leapt off of the final building and landed on one of the trees (nevermind all the leaves that got in my face) to springboard off of it and towards the pond, and I braced for impact. But to my surprise, he actually landed on some rocks in the middle of the pond, where we waited for Garrett, who was not too far behind.

Before I could ask about what few onlookers there were at the pond, sure enough, Garrett showed up too, although he looked a bit more winded than Hisoka. “Hah...guess you’re nothing but a bunch of pussies...” he gasped.

“I must congratulate you for making it this far, my dear Garrett. Even with a hand injury like that. At least you can do that much~.” Hisoka winked.

“Oh, that’s nothing. And for what?” Garrett smirked, having caught his breath pretty quickly. “You’re stuck in the middle of the pond on those rocks while carrying a piece of deadweight. I could still kill you both with one hand tied behind my back blindfolded if I wanted to.”

Hisoka smiled. “Oh? Very well, then. I’d like to see you try. ♦”

Before I could even blink, a bunch of water suddenly splashed all over Garrett right when he tried unleashing one of those invisible explosions again. Except nothing happened, and he instead was standing there snapping his fingers and looking frustrated. “What the hell? Why isn’t this working anymore!?”

“Just as I thought...you can’t cause explosions even with your aura if you yourself are too damp. Didn’t you learn that in school?”

Garrett’s eye twitched. “Well...well, FUCK YOU GUYS! I don’t need my super awesome Nen powers to kill you both!”

At the same time, though, the fact that he didn’t move at all spoke volumes, and now it was Hisoka’s turn to go on the offensive.

“St...stay back! I’m gonna unleash my super special awesome attack if you take one more step—!”

He didn’t even get out a single word before playing cards came flying out of the trees from all directions and stabbed him everywhere, showering the ground with his blood as he fell to the ground, leaving me just staring in shock and silence.

At long last, I was able to break the silence and ask, “...Hey, Hisoka?”

“Hm~?”

“Was whatever you did just now, well…could you have done it earlier? Like, way earlier? Like, even before Garrett even met me at all?” Considering how I was still shaking from all the near death gravity defying experiences earlier, it would have saved my sanity a lot of trouble.

“Hmm…I suppose for one of my abilities, it would have been no problem at all. But I know what you’re going to say. And my answer is the same as before: Where’s the fun in doing that? Otherwise, I would have even killed you by now already.”

I gulped.

“...Ah. Right. I should probably get you over to Plushie World. I’m afraid I’ve almost made you late for you next shift. ♠”

After all that? He STILL was acting like all this is no big deal?

I guess I probably should have expected something like this from him, considering how he was a known serial killer, but I don’t think it actually hit me until now. The real reason why all of the other contestants were so terrified of Hisoka and thought that it was completely unfair that he was selected to be in there at all.

He wasn’t afraid of anything. He must have had who knows how many years of experience killing people. He was so powerful that he could kill us all easily if he wanted to, even against all the other Nen users so far, let alone a nobody like me. And he actually craved excitement from every single battle.

In other words, he was the single most likely person guaranteed to win the survival game. Which meant of course, in one way or another...I was already doomed.

**To be continued...**


	3. Creepers Gonna Creep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go from bad to worse as Hisoka decides to crash at Annie’s apartment, whether she likes it or not. As if having a creepy stalker around wasn’t enough, she now has to deal with one in her living room, and on top of all that, a Manipulator tries to kill them both by controlling all of the people living in the complex!

Shortly after our battle with Garrett, Slix Vigma teleported us to his ship once again. And of course, whatever teleportation technology he was using separated me and Hisoka so that I fell flat on my butt once again.

“Ooowww...” That hurt. Just like last time. Of course.

I clambered up to my feet so that I could look through the high window in my chamber and see what was going on. Sure enough, Slix Vigma was there in the center of the room like before, and I could see the 11 other chambers with windows around him. Once again, I thought that there were only nine people left counting me, but I could only see the faces of seven of them instead of eight. I still had no idea what was up with that mysterious invisible contestant.

But before I could even think to ask about that, one of the rooms then had its door pull up all the way to reveal Garrett's bloody dead body full of cards in it, and several people gasped.

“Hisoka again…”

“I fucking knew it.”

“Showoff...”

As the rest of the contestants grumbled about it in both fear and despair, I began to wonder why Hisoka always killed his victims with playing cards, especially since it would make it obvious that he was the killer. (Of course, I also wondered how cards could even be used to kill people in the first place, but that was beside the point.). But then when the video playback of our battle came up, it became pretty obvious anyway, cards or not.

Then we saw the alien robot himself, standing on his high horse of a hoverboard and descending to speak with all of us...or at least, that was what it looked like until he turned his head in my direction.

“Well, well, Annie...this is the second time you have defied death. And once again, all thanks to our friend Hisoka Morow.” Turning his head slightly to the right, he then added, “I must thank you for not ending the battle so quickly and putting on a good show for us all. We across the galaxy felt like we thoroughly got our money’s worth from that fight.”

Hisoka chuckled. “Oh no. This is the least I could do to repay you for providing me with such a...wonderful opportunity. ♥ And besides, I am a magician. How could I not?”

Magician, my ass. He was clearly a serial killer, first and foremost.

It seemed as though the other contestants shared my sentiments, if not more strongly. Particularly since no normal human being would reply the way Hisoka did to what Slix Vigma just said.

“I knew it! This game was rigged so that he would win!”

“We’re all gonna die because of you!”

Slix Vigma turned to them, unphased. “Ah. You may say that, but there are still seven of you remaining besides him and Annie. Perhaps you could come up with alternative strategies to even the odds? Regardless, it is your choices. Think hard about them.”

Right when it looked like he was about to leave and send us all back, I called out, “Hey, uh...are we all going to get teleported here every time somebody dies?”

“Ah, that is a good question. Indeed you are. However, it is up to my discretion when exactly I choose to do so. Usually only when all of the excitement is over. That being said...Hisoka?”

“Mm?”

“I do hope you’ll continue to keep things interesting. Even between battles.”

“Oooh...trust me. I’ve already got you covered there~.”

\---------------------

Well, that wasn’t at all ominous.

Sure enough, after we were teleported back, Hisoka helped me get to Plushie World like he said he would, even if I was complaining about him being seen in broad daylight. It’s not like you see people everyday who wear clown/jester getup yet admittedly manage to make it look nice.

I managed to successfully put in for a three month absence there too, but by that point I looked so battered that they insisted that I go home immediately and not worry about the shift that was scheduled for today. On one hand, I actually liked working at Plushie World more than at The Salted Tea since I didn’t have to carry plates or take orders or whatever. And plus, I loved working at a store that sold almost nothing but plushies~. On the other, I was also glad they seemed to understand whatever situation I might have been in without me having to explain anything.

By the time I limped out of there, I started on my way back home. I managed to make my way through the shopping center’s parking lot and turned onto the sidewalks when suddenly, who else was standing there in front of me but…

“Hisoka.” I gritted my teeth. It was really getting annoying how often I was running into this guy.

“My, you look happy to see me. ♣” He smiled playfully, clearly being facetious.

“Cut the crap. What are you doing here? This is the way I go home.”

I tried to swerve around him and continue on my way (well, as best as I could with a still aching leg from where Jenna stabbed me last night), but of course I couldn’t do so that easily. Not with him stretching his arm out in front of me to block my way and leaning on the chain link fence.

“Do you really want to go home like that?” He gestured to my obvious limp. “I can help.”

“Well, it’s not like I have a choice, do I?” I retorted, getting even more irritated by the second. Who did this guy think he was? “Now out of my way. I can walk by myself.”

“Oh no, I wasn’t just going to help you get home. I was going to ask if I could crash at your place for the night. ♣”

The way he said that was so nonchalant that it took several seconds for me to process what he just said, but when I did, my heart skipped a beat.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” I shouted, leaping away and swinging my bag at him. “ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS!?”

“This is the second time you’ve almost been killed, and not even 24 hours have passed! If it weren’t for my help both times, you’d be long dead by now~.”

But I was having none of it. “What does that have to do with anything!? It’s not like they can get me IN MY OWN HOUSE!!” Well, apartment, but whatever.

To my surprise, he just laughed. “Oh, no no no. I thought you’d understand after the last two battles, but it seems you still do not. These are Nen users. A locked door means nothing to them. ♦ They know your name. And as today has shown, one of them had managed to figure out where you work. So even if you were to go with your supposed plan of staying at home for these next three months, even that would be dangerous since they can find out where you live.”

“...” He had a point. But… “You got any better ideas!? I mean, it’s not like I can just run away because Slix Vigma said these bombs would go off if we went more than 50 miles away from Yorknew City! And besides, why can’t you just stay outside like...well, last night, apparently!!”

Granted, I’d much rather have him be as far away as possible; maybe on the Megacruiser itself. And I was shocked enough to see him right outside my door this morning.

“Oh, but that would mean more walls to break through if I sensed someone in there. It might be too late! ♠”

“SO WHAT!? I can’t just let a freaking SERIAL KILLER in my house like that! Not even…!”

Then that last part of what he said registered.

“...Wait, what? Sense?”

He smiled. “Ah, yes. ♥ I don’t believe I told you. Since you are up against Nen users, it would be criminal for me to not let you know about what they’re capable of, wouldn’t it?”

I still stood a safe distance away from him, with my hand on the pepper spray if I needed it. Maybe I relaxed my guard a bit, wanting to know more, but not by too much. “...Go on.”

“You see, Nen users utilize the power of the aura surrounding their bodies as a means of attack. And there is an advanced technique called En where they expand the radius of their aura as far as their powers will allow them. While this aura is expanded, if anyone comes in contact with it, the Nen user can instantly detect who and where they are. So, for example, if you were asleep, and one of them came up to your doorstep and used En to figure out where you were…”

I think I was starting to see where this was going. “Okay, I get that...but that means you can use En too, can’t you? Couldn’t you just wait outside and use it to see if anyone else is trying to break in?”

“For how long, exactly?”

I stared in confusion.

“I forgot to mention. It is not just a matter of distance, but how long one can hold their En radius that is determined by each individual Nen user’s strengths. Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I am quite strong~.”

And I didn’t doubt him! If he was able to drag me around and fight off Garrett at the same time without breaking a sweat, then who knew what else he could do? Those arm muscles of his certainly didn’t lie, at least.

“That being said, even I couldn’t hold a radius as large as your apartment there for days on end. And even if I could, that would leave me with almost no energy left to fight off any Nen users by the time they did arrive. So you would die, and all for what? Because you were too proud to let me help you out a little? ♠”

I was going to say that normal people usually don’t let psychos in their houses even if they were trapped in the middle of a death game and said psycho was the only reason they lasted this long. But on the other hand, anyone could clearly tell that Hisoka didn’t operate by normal people rules. Which of course made things worse.

“In fact, how about this? I’d even be willing to offer you the money you’d need for the next three months of rent—”

“STOP TRYING TO GIVE ME MONEY!!” I blurted, before then realizing what I had just said. “...Wow. Er, what I meant was, you can’t bribe me!”

“Well, that was a surprise.” Though he sure didn’t look that surprised to me… “I could have sworn that for someone in your living conditions, you wouldn’t want to pass up on such an offer. Particularly if I’m going to help you out anyway, whether you like it or not—”

“FINE, FINE! Give me the freaking money!”

As he placed the money in my outstretched hands, I hung my head in defeat. On one hand, I couldn’t believe he got me like this, but on the other hand, it kind of confirmed what I could already blatantly tell from the past two days. He was so powerful that he could honestly just do whatever he wanted and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

That still didn’t mean that I couldn’t at least kick and scream and fight to the best of my abilities, regardless. So I quickly tried to take charge once again. “But!”

I held a finger in front of his face as best as I could, which was really stretching it, considering how he was like six feet tall and I was only 5’4”.

“But!! Stay. Out. Of. My. Room!!”

He just stared at my finger for a while there, as if amused by this whole thing. “Oh~? So that’s what this is about? Are you worried that I might pounce on y—?”

“SHUT UP!!”

I aimed another kick at his crotch, but he saw it coming this time and was able to move out of the way rather smoothly.

“Just kidding~. I was just going to ask if you would allow for any exceptions to that rule if a contestant did happen to get into your room.”

“I highly doubt that.” I huffed. “I still think you’re using this as an excuse for some nasty stuff. But fine! Let’s pretend that by some miracle, one of the contestants did get in and you sensed them with your En or whatever. Yeah, go ahead, but make sure you bust down the door! It needs to be that urgent!”

“...Very well, then. Fair enough! I am your honored guest, after all. ♥”

Why did the way he said that not make me feel any better?

\-------------------------

Great.

Just fucking great.

So I finally managed to quit both my jobs, and with the extra money that Hisoka gave me, I had enough stashed away to pay the bills for at least three months ahead of time. Good thing I was able to pay bills online. That meant that I didn’t even have to leave my apartment at all.

Except…

There was a psychopathic serial killer crashing on the couch in the living room.

Yeah, he just sat there most of the time. Yeah, he barely said or even did much of anything. But…

How in the heck was I supposed to get any sleep when I swear there were eyes on the back of his head? Or at least, how else was I supposed to describe this aura that surrounded him whenever I got too close?

He explained it was his aura like I thought, but it was special in the sense that it only flared up like that when he was feeling unusually bloodthirsty (hah, a serial killer feeling “unusually bloodthirsty”, that’s a laugh), so as a result, even normal people would run away when they felt he was around. Certainly would explain a few things in terms of the seemingly coincidental lack of bystanders whenever he was around. I guess the good news was that if a Nen user detected an unusual amount of said negative energy from this apartment building, then they’d probably realize just how strong this guy was and stay away.

The bad news of course, was that for one, I was the closest to the center of that incredibly creepy aura he was constantly emitting. And if what he said was true, it had even more of an effect on normal people than Nen users, who could at least protect themselves using the most basic of techniques.

Why did I let this guy in here, again?

I didn’t even last a second day before I finally had to go outside to get some fresh air (with the excuse that I wanted to play more “Pokemon Go”), but even that didn’t completely work since he continued to just hang around me no matter where I went! I mean, yeah, I was grateful for the protection, but it was kind of hard to honestly feel that way when I could feel this guy’s creepy aura like it was breathing down my neck. At least it was better than being stuck with it at home all day.

During one of said walks, I felt like I finally had to at least bring it up.

“Hey, Hisoka.”

He popped his head out of a nearby tree, almost as if it was on purpose for the comedic effect of whoever happened to be watching us at the time. Which was nobody. “Hmm?”

“It’s been three whole days, and there’s still no sign of anyone attacking us! What’s going on?”

He chuckled. “Well, Slix Vigma did give everyone three months! No reason it has to end as soon as possible. Besides, I’ve already killed two of them. The other seven must be spooked. Either that, or they’re taking his advice to heart and trying to actually form a competent strategy against us. Which I certainly hope… ♦” He licked his lips. “The past two battles had been a bit too dull for my liking, after all~.”

Yeesh. As if he couldn’t get any creepier!

I quickly tried to use “a rare Pokemon I wanted to catch” as an excuse to run off as far as I could at that moment, but I honestly wondered if he could at all tell whether I was telling the truth or not. Not that he’d care either way. Sometimes I got the feeling that he just enjoyed getting a kick out of my reactions to his antics.

Well, even if I tried to not give him any satisfaction in that regard, it was pretty much impossible to keep it up for long, given his constant presence, creepy aura, and the fact that I was barely getting any sleep anymore due to stress. I probably looked like a wreck too, because of it.

That night, as I was pondering over everything and trying my best to actually get some sleep and not let that “eyes on the back of my head” feeling keep me awake yet again, it suddenly occurred to me.

Could this whole thing have also been part of one of the contestants’ plans?

Gosh, I hope not. It would be super insidious of them if they did. But then how did they know? The only aura I felt this whole time was just Hisoka’s, and way more than I would have liked. I didn’t feel any other auras around during these past three days, and besides, even if they did hit me, why would they not attack right away?

Unless their aura just happened to be the exact same...or maybe they were able to change their aura to have the exact same feeling as Hisoka’s...but wait. Then wouldn’t Hisoka have noticed them by now? He still hasn’t reacted or anything, so how would they have been able to even copy his aura without him even noticing?

I turned around. Urgh. I wanted to ask Hisoka more about Nen and what it was capable of, but I had a really hard time doing even that with this creepy aura surrounding him this whole time. Ah well, maybe in the morning, I could just…

\-------------------------

_SMASH!_

I jolted up in bed. Oh god, did I manage to actually fall asleep at the worst possible time? “AAAUGH!! Hisoka!?”

The sound came from right in front of me, and I heard a loud thud the size of a person come crashing through the wall, leaving dust and splinters everywhere. Oh shit, was it Hisoka? I couldn’t see a thing, not with the lighting from the hole in the wall covering the figure’s face in shadows! Not that it would make much sense given how he was camping out in the living room, but maybe he changed his mind and decided he had enough of waiting around and—

_WHAM!!_

The door flew off its hinges and smashed itself right into the face of the figure of the guy who had come in, and the hallway light illuminated the fact that it wasn’t Hisoka, whoever the axe-wielding guy was. In fact, Hisoka was the one who blew the door open.

I jumped out of bed. “Hisoka, what the hell just happened!? Was that another contestant?”

“Not exactly… ♠” He still looked tense and alert. “Rather, it was one of the people here in the apartment complex. The true contestant is elsewhere.”

I quickly turned around to get a better look at the guy who was crushed by the door—or at least attempted to before I realized just how mangled his body was and how much blood was seeping from him before I covered my mouth, about to hurl. “Kh! Oh god...what…?”

Of course, Hisoka didn’t react at all, instead scooping me up and moving to get out of here. “From the looks of it, this must be a Manipulator. Whoever they are, their powers seem remarkably similar to Shalnark—er, I mean, someone I know. Except I don’t see any needles in them, or anything else that shows they’re being mind controlled, for that matter...”

“MIND CONTROLLED??” I was too busy freaking out. Just how many superpowers were these Nen users capable of? And did he imply that there were more people being mind controlled in this building? And— “Hey, wait a second, I’m still in my PJs—”

Before I could get anything else out, Hisoka ran through the living room and kicked through the front door, and just in time, too. Apparently there was someone else hiding behind it wielding another axe.

As soon as he ran forward into the hallway, I turned around to get a look, and sure enough, there were people I recognized as also living in this apartment complex...except for one, they all also had axes, knives, chainsaws, etc. as weapons, and for another, they were all rushing towards us from both ends.

“AAAAAAAAH, WE’RE GONNA DIE, WE’RE GONNA DIE!”

Wait, hadn't I said that already? Well, who cares? Even though the circumstances were different, as if it were out of a Survival Horror game, it applied just as well.

And as usual, Hisoka didn’t panic at all. He quickly slid me around onto his back before throwing multiple playing cards right in everyone’s throats one by one and sending them collapsing to the floor in bloody heaps, dropping their weapons right where they stood.

Oh man. The police were going to be all over us after this madness was over. Assuming we even survived to begin with. I half expected someone to be like a zombie and just chew through the ceiling and try to jump down and bite us, and—

“AAAAAH, HISOKA, LOOK UP!”

Sure enough, someone crashed through a ceiling panel with a hammer and had jumped down, about to smash our heads in, but it looked like my warning was just in time. Hisoka jumped out of the way and snatched the hammer with his Invisible Gum or whatever, using it to smash the guy’s head in and splattering blood over both of us.  
  


“Aaaah, what the hell, Hisoka!? Now we’re covered in blood and the police are gonna—!”

“Rather than worry about that right now, we should be finding who is manipulating these people. And of course, surviving this mess. ♦”

“R—right…” I still couldn’t help but gag a little at the brutal way he slaughtered all of these people I’ve seen pretty regularly for almost a year now. I mean, I wasn’t very close to them if at all, since I was such a loner loser all this time, but now I’d never get the chance to know them at all, and it wasn’t even their fault. This stupid game was causing these dumbass Nen users to use them as live bait.

I wanted to find who it was and stop this madness, whatever it took.

“Oh...I forgot to ask.” He turned to me as best as he could, given how I was still on his back. “What’s the one place in this apartment where one would hide if they didn’t want anyone to find them?”

“Huh…?” That seemed like a bit of an odd question to ask, though not entirely out of left field. “Um...I guess it would be the study hall in the upper right corner from here on the third floor. Why?”

“Just a hunch. I want to see if it’s true or not. ♣”

Before I could ask anything else, we barrelled through the hallways and down the stairs. As we did so, I noticed that the number of people who were rushing to stop us seemed to grow larger and larger, and it was everything I could do to keep from hurling at the gruesome ways Hisoka just mowed them down. The blood trail just kept getting thicker, and I wanted to keep my eyes shut, but I also didn’t want to be blindsided by an enemy that Hisoka didn’t catch and end up with my head chopped off. Urgh.

“I think I’m starting to understand how this power works…” Hisoka muttered. “The closer we’re getting to where you described, the more of these people were stationed. And they all seem to be bent on protecting it.” He smiled. “Which means that something must happen if we find them. ♣”

“Well, hurry!” I held back a queasy feeling. “I think I’m about to throw up!”

“Gladly. ♥”

He threw something invisible which separated the crowd of people into neat rows of two and smashed them against the walls, leading us to the study room. They struggled against the Invisible Gum, but given how they couldn’t access their weapons, they were pretty much useless.

“And you couldn’t have done this earlier...why…?” I asked.

“Oops! Sorry. Force of habit.” He stuck out his tongue, as if enjoying this. “Plus, this is a lot easier now. ♥”

We burst through the room to find a girl about my age with tan skin, sitting at the desk. Or at least she was until she saw us, in which she leapt from the chair and screamed, “OH, FUCKING SHIT!!”

“Bingo~.”

I guess we found her after all. Her reaction was everything.

As we stood in front of her, cornering her against the wall, I heard a bunch of thuds behind us. I glanced behind us to see all of the people dropping like flies and making snoring noises.

Hisoka didn’t even need to turn around to realize what was happening. “Ah, my hunch was correct...your power only works so long as your target does not discover your hiding place. And you needed to be close enough to control everyone at once with that much precision. I was wondering why you didn’t need to stick needles in everyone or make it obvious in some other way like that...Ellie. ♣”

But to our surprise, the girl (who apparently was called Ellie?) didn’t even curse at us or even try to beg for her life. Instead, she laughed. “Yeah, so you’ve managed to figure out my power by a complete lucky guess. And now I can’t use it against you anymore because you found me. Well...that means nothing! Because now that you’re here, I can still kill you both!”

I gasped, and Hisoka fell silent. Did that mean that this girl had another power up her sleeve?

Two balls of glowing purple electric energy suddenly filled the incredibly cramped room on either side of her, and she then launched them into streams of energy arcing around Hisoka towards me.

“Oh my god…!” I gasped. “No no no no NO…!”

It didn’t look like Hisoka would be able to get us out of this one. The energy blocked the way out, with one behind us and another in front, and there was no way for us to run. It looked like he tried to block it with his Invisible Gum, but it just arced around wherever he was placing it at was headed straight for me.

“SHIT!! NO!!!”

The next thing I knew, it had to have hit me, because the next thing I felt was an intense burning all throughout my body and especially my spine. I felt as thought it would annihilate me entirely.

“ANNIE!!”

This was it. I lost the game. I managed to survive this long, even though the only reason I had done so was because Hisoka was doing his best to try and protect me all this time. For his own selfish reasons to be sure, but in my last moments, I got the brief feeling that maybe, just maybe, he actually did care a teensy bit.

But it didn’t matter, because at the very end of this third battle...

I had died.

**To be continued...**


	4. The Nen Teacher Nobody Asked For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The good news is, Annie didn’t die, and better yet, because of that last attack, she has now gained the ability to use Nen! The bad news is, she’s now stuck in Hisoka’s secret hideaway on the outskirts of Yorknew City, where he plans to teach her how to use Nen in the most...interesting of ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop, posted this chapter a day ahead of schedule because I'll have practically no time tomorrow. Enjoy!

_Pain._

_I could feel an intense pain throughout my body, as if I was still being hit by lighting or something._

_I thought I could see someone’s shadow over me to the side. They seemed...kind of familiar…_

_Finally, the pain was going away. In its place, I was vaguely aware of being in some sort of cave-like structure._

_Where was I…? This wasn’t any sort of place I remembered. In fact, this didn’t even feel like any normal dream…_

Wait a second…

I wasn’t dead. This wasn’t heaven. This was still real life...wasn’t it?

This bed felt pretty normal, as far as beds were concerned, even if it smelled a bit...different. I’m pretty sure the cave ceiling wasn’t just my mind playing tricks on me.

And were there...bandages around my back…?

And that person whose back was turned to me...wait...they were...

“Oh! Hello, Annie. Welcome back. ♥”

I sat up with a jolt. “Hisoka!? What the—!?”

Of course, I didn’t get very far before even more pain shot through my body and I was forced to lie back down again. “Owww...where am I?”

“Well! You’re still in the land of the living, if that’s what you’re wondering~.”

I carefully placed a hand to my cheek and pinched myself, as if that massive amount of pain still wasn’t proof enough. “Dammit. I was hoping this was heaven or something.”

“Oh? ♥” Hisoka looked strangely delighted. “Were you really that happy to see me?”

“SHUT UP!! You know what I mean!” I tried to take a swing at his head, but of course, I couldn’t get very far with that either.

“At any rate…” He held a finger in front of my face. “You have me to thank for your miraculous recovery yet again~.”

“Oh yeah…” I looked around, trying to process everything. “...What happened? I mean, after Ellie killed me. Er, I mean, after I didn’t die. Or whatever.”

He turned to a chair that I only just noticed standing there to the left and sat down on it. “Well, if you must know...I made her pay dearly for that. Nobody breaks my toys without paying the price, you see. ♠ Ooooh yes they don’t~.”

I was going to point out how he could unironically call me a toy to my face, blatantly stating how little he actually cared about me, but right then, I could feel the creepy bloodthirsty aura emanating from him yet again and quickly tried to change the subject. “I mean, what happened after that? Didn’t Slix Vigma teleport us all to the ship again? What happened to me then? Why didn’t he declare me dead too?”

He paused for several seconds, just looking at me slyly, as if trying to figure out the best way to answer that question. Or maybe he knew something I didn’t, as usual. “Oh, according to him, you were only, well…*mostly* dead. If you were all dead, then of course you would have been out of luck! In fact, normal people who get hit by a Nen attack land in the hospital for months. But look at you! Already almost better again, you lucky girl~.”

I grumbled as I struggled to move without more searing pain. “Sure doesn’t feel that way to me…”

“Almost too lucky…” His eyes narrowed and he gave me a sinister glare. “Like the kind of resilience that an actual Nen user would have… ♣”

“Hisoka…?” I gave him a suspicious look. “Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something important from me…?”

“Oh? You mean like that cloud of aura escaping from your body at this very moment?” he asked in the most nonchalant voice possible.

I blinked. “Cloud of what now…?”

Now that I think about it, didn’t it look like there was a bunch of steam clouding my vision? Except it wasn’t quite steam, since it didn’t have quite that consistency...and I swore I felt like I was going to faint at any moment…

“I’ll give you a tip...that’s your life energy coming out. If you don’t want to faint, I suggest that you focus hard on it and try to keep it around you. With your mind, in case you were wondering.”

Every instinct I had at the moment was freaking out like crazy, and I was tempted to scream again, but if I was understanding him correctly, doing that might only make things worse. So I tried to calm myself down and stare really hard at the steam, trying to imagine forcing it to stop and surrounding me like he said. Hah. With my mind? I had no idea if that would even work or if I was doing it correctly, but I had to try, right?

It took a few seconds, but I noticed the stream starting to dissipate and instead shrouding my entire body. Huh. It looked like these whole mind powers weren’t so hard get the hang of after all.

Then I heard Hisoka slowly clap a few times. “Very good~. Looks like you’ve gotten the hang of the first principle already. Of course, if you couldn’t, you’d be in quite the pickle, but there was no doubt in my mind you could do it. ♥”

He paused to sit down before eyeing me in a weird way again. “No doubt at all…”

I was a bit too freaked out to really worry about that at the moment. “Wait, wait, wait. If I’m not dreaming or anything...I can use these super awesome Nen powers now!?”

“Indeed, indeed! I had my suspicions that maybe you were a latent user this whole time, though of course I didn’t know for sure until about a few hours ago. By getting hit with that attack, you seem to have taken the hard and fast way to awakening your Nen...”

A few hours ago… “Hey, hang on. What about my stuff from my apartment? What happened there?” Last time I remembered, the place was caked in blood and guts and…oof. Felt a gag coming on. Shouldn’t have remembered that.

“Ah, yes. ...About that.”

\-------------

“...So let me get this straight.”

By this time, I had already managed to sit up, though my mind was still spinning from everything Hisoka just told me.

“First, you killed Ellie as revenge for thinking she might have killed me. Then you found out that I was only mostly dead, so you used that Invisible Gum—”

“Bungee Gum~.”

“—Bungee Gum, yeah, to try and help me recover, and also so that I didn’t get hurt when Slix Vigma teleported us back to the ship. And then you BURNED MY APARTMENT TO THE GROUND so you could get rid of the evidence, but not before getting my stuff out of there with your Invisible—I mean, Bungee Gum, and then you dragged me all the way out here, to the outskirts of Yorknew City...IN YOUR SECRET HIDEAWAY!!” I threw up my arms before then noticing a sink and mirror nearby. “...And apparently there’s running water.”

Of course, as if to prove my point, he had already gotten a glass a water from said sink and was handing it over to me. Which then reminded me of how incredibly thirsty I was, so I took it.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip, but then I squeezed my eyes shut and puckered my lips. The taste of the water was...surprisingly sour!

Hisoka chuckled. “Ah, I mixed in some lemonade in there just now. Hope you like it~.”

From the expression on his face, it looked like he was enjoying this way too much, as if he were playing some silly prank. Still, though, lemonade or not, I needed it, so I grit my teeth and slowly gulped the rest of it down as best as I could.

He took the glass from me after I was finished. “Anyway, yes, it is true that you now are capable of using Nen. However, that doesn’t mean you automatically have ‘superpowers’. At least, not in the sense that you say. Nen is far more complicated than that, and you have to master the basics before you can start developing said powers.”

I sighed. “...So I guess I’m going to have to learn a bit more before I can finally start fighting against everyone else on equal ground, huh?”

On one hand, I felt heartened by the fact that I finally felt like I wasn’t at a huge unfair disadvantage anymore, but on the other hand, I felt like my entire life had been a lie up to this point. If only I figured out I could use Nen a lot earlier in my life, then maybe I could have been far more successful instead of being the loner loser in life like I was. And I was already 25 years old! I wasted an entire quarter of my life not knowing I could use Nen apparently!

That being said, though, I wasn’t the kind of person who liked fighting by any means. And given how Nen looked like it was mostly used for combat purposes, maybe that explained why it took so long for me to realize I could use it all this time.

“Indeed. And that is where I come in!” Hisoka rubbed his hands in anticipation. “I have to admit, it’s been a long time since I have taught someone Nen. But no worries. You will find no better teacher than me. ♥”

“Uh-huh…” I slowly nodded.

Actually, I would have much prefered anyone else EXCEPT Hisoka to teach me. Especially if it looked like I was going to be stuck in his hideaway so that the other contestants couldn’t find us easily since he didn’t have an address or anything. And it didn’t have that much space in it for one person, let alone two people. This was honestly the perfect setup to like, a slasher movie or something. If anything, it looked like everything fell into place a little too well so that Hisoka could get at me alone and—

“Any questions?”

“Whoa, what?” His voice snapped me out of it. “Oh, yeah. I’ve got questions, all right.”

Especially now that I was wide awake and could properly examine the entire room at a glance now. “Um...if this is your bed, then where are you gonna sleep?” I was probably going to regret asking this, but I really needed to know.

He laughed. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me, Annie. I’m quite used to conditions worse than this. One time, I sat under a tree in the middle of an island for an entire week! That being said…”

He then leaned down and whispered in my ear. “I wouldn’t mind getting in here with you if you were ever feeling rather...needy. ♥”

“GET OUT!!” I couldn’t slap him in the face fast enough.

He stood back up and rubbed his cheek where I slapped him, but didn’t seem to mind too much. “Yes, yes, I’ll be out here. If you change your mind, of course~.”

And with that, he left through what looked like a makeshift stairwell up to something above, and it looked like there was a secret doorway that emitted some sunlight as if it was outside. Were we underground? Given all the rock formations, that was entirely possible.

Feeling needy, my ass. Hah, if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think that this entire survival game setup was a great big elaborate prank that Hisoka set up just so that he could have an excuse to get into my pants. Of course, dragging in ten other Nen users as well as an entire alien spaceship and Slix Vigma himself seemed like it would be overkill for something like that. And besides, there were loads of other people out there he could have gone after instead of me. Even if I apparently was a latent Nen user. Plus, four people had died already. I mean, yeah, he liked killing people anyway, but...

Still, though, maybe that was the part of me that wished this whole thing was either a bad dream or an elaborate joke and we weren’t really all in danger. My personal outrages aside, I honestly would have accepted sleeping with someone like him over being forced to participate in this twisted death game. All things considered, he was surprisingly not bad to look at. For a serial killer.

Whatever the case might have been; survival game, elaborate setup, whatever, it looked like I didn’t have much of a choice in my current situation. My apartment was burned down, all the other contestants in the game were still after me, and now I was suddenly gaining Nen powers on top of all that. Whether I liked it or not, I was getting a training montage from him, one way another.

At least I still had my stuff from my apartment. Well, most of it, anyway. Hisoka left the computer I use to write and draw to burn along with the rest of the complex.

Bastard.

\-------------------

Of course, as it turned out, it was probably a good idea that he let my computer burn, because I had almost no time to rest during the next few weeks. Plus, there was that three month time limit to worry about.

Thankfully for our training, we mostly stayed outside the hideout, where I could see where exactly we were in relation to the city. Specifically the section of it with a bunch of abandoned buildings where nobody would think to check. Except maybe certain other contestants, but I couldn’t afford to worry about that now.

So according to Hisoka, there were four basic principles of Nen. I had already mastered Ten, the first principle, by simply being able to keep my aura in. And, well, not fainting because of it.

Next up was Zetsu, which was the ability to make your aura disappear. It could be used to hide yourself so people couldn’t sense you, but the drawback was that you no longer had as much protection from Nen attacks as you would have when your aura was up. (Not that it made much of a difference to me since I was completely vulnerable before all the time anyway, but it was nice now having a sort of buffer with these new powers.) That one took a bit longer, but I was able to master it in a day for the most part.

The third was Ren, which was basically enhancing your existing aura around your body to make your punches and kicks stronger. This one took a couple days to really get down, but even so, Hisoka was pretty impressed since according to him, it usually takes a lot longer than that for most people to get ahold of these techniques in general. Although in his case, he was able to master them at around my speed, so of course compared to him, I wasn’t the most unusual case in the world.

It was shortly after I had mastered Ren but before we were supposed to cover the final principle that one night, Hisoka randomly woke me up.

“Annie?”

I nearly screamed and leapt out of the bed, but then realized that we weren’t under attack or anything and could relax. “Oh, Hisoka! Jeez, you nearly scared me...what’s up?”

“There’s actually one advanced technique I could teach you before we get to the final principle. One that I believe you’ll be interested in quite personally. ♣”

He didn’t say anything else, instead, just twirling his finger around thin air and humming faintly, so I asked, “...Okay, what is it? And why did you wake me up in the middle of the night for this?”

“Oh, you’ll see~.” Cryptic response, as always. Though by this point, I couldn’t help but get nervous every time he answered that way. “Anyway, you know how you concentrate your aura with Ren? This time instead of having it be around your entire body, focus it on your eyes. Specifically your eyesight.”

I gasped, but then quickly set about doing what he said, since he’d probably just ignore my questions and tell me to just do it. I got the feeling that with whatever advanced skill this was, this would be able to help me to see invisible stuff. Maybe even his Invisible Gum? I was so excited. I’d finally be able to see what his so-called Bungee Gum Nen power actually looked like!

I focused my aura as best as I could, but this time, like he said, concentrated it around my eyes. Though that meant that there was a mass of aura now surrounding them and putting a faint cloud over my vision, within the next few seconds, everything seemed normal again, if not more magnified. Except there was one crucial difference.

Hisoka wasn’t just twirling his finger around thin air anymore. I could suddenly see a long, glowing, pink rubbery gum-like strand being twirled around it. I gasped. “Oh!”

“Ah! So now you can finally see it. ♣” He looked pleased.

“Yeah! This is soooooo cool! I can finally see invisible stuff!” I gushed. “And I can see why you call it Bungee Gum now. It’s even the same color! Aww...now you’re making me want the actual gum. I miss it.”

He laughed. “Well, I can get you the actual gum later on, but in the meantime…”

Suddenly, he sat on the bed and slid closer to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Now that you’ve appeared to recover from your injuries, and all…”

Oh shit. This wasn’t what I thought it was, was it?

\-----------------------

It totally was. That bastard caught me in a moment of weakness, apparently. I guess it wasn’t bad at all, since I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. It was almost too good…but then again, Lord knows I didn’t have very long to live with this whole survival game thing going on, so...

Anyway, naughty things aside, I had to admit that being able to see Bungee Gum finally was pretty cool. I guess since Garrett was already dead, I’d never know what his attacks looked like, but that was a loss I was willing to take.

Sure enough, by the end of the week, I was ready to move onto the final principle. Except that it turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought.

We were already outside sitting around the field of rocks that marked the entrance of his hideaway when he came out holding a glass of water with a leaf on it.

I sat up and pointed at it. “Uh...what’s with the leaf?”

“Ah, yes. Allow me to explain.”

He set the glass of water down in front of me and said, “There are actually six categories which your Hatsu could fall under. Enhancers, Transmuters, Conjurers, Emitters, Manipulators, and Specialists. And they all relate to each other like so…”

Then he grabbed a stick from somewhere and drew a hexagon in the dirt, labeling them all with said descriptors.

“Is there a reason why they’re arranged like that instead of just a list…?” I asked.

“Quite a few, in fact. They show how easy it is to learn techniques of other types compared to the one you find that you are. But I can explain more later. For now, the single most reliable way of finding out which category you fall under is through Water Divination, which is what you see here.” He gestured to the glass.

I stared at it from all angles, giving it a hard look. “What, am I supposed to blast it with my aura or something…?”

“You’re on the right track! Just envelop it with your aura, and the reaction from it will determine which category you fall under.”

I stared at it for a while longer before kneeling down and putting my hands on either side of it, and then thought to ask, “Wait, which reactions correspond to which categories—?”

“Go on, I can explain later~.”

Of course he’d always want me to go on while not explaining everything. Wonderful. “Fine, fine…” I guess there was value in learning things by doing, and besides, all this Nen stuff was pretty complicated as it was, if these long winded explanations were any indicator.

I focused my aura using Ren around it like he suggested, and for a while, nothing seemed to be happening. Within the next few seconds after that, though, I started seeing bubbles form in the water. No, not just bubbles...I thought I saw some sort of pink gummy substance appear in there that was creating the bubbles in the first place.

“Aaaah~.” He smiled. “You’re a Conjurer. ♣”

I blinked. “...Let me guess. I can make stuff appear out of thin air.”

“Bingo! Now you’re getting it. Although unlike Transmuters, you do not transform your aura into something different, and the objects you create cannot be made invisible. Though you know…”

He pointed to the diagram in the dirt. “Conjurers are right next to Transmuters. And though you could probably have guessed, I myself am a Transmuter. You see, people under similar categories not only find it easier to learn each other’s techniques. They tend to be more compatible with each other on a personal level.”  


Then he placed a hand on my shoulder. “And as you well know, they could become...quite intimate. ♦”

“AAAAAH NO NO NO NO NO. We are NOT going there.” I shoved him away from me reflexively.

“Oh? Now this is a surprise. And after you enjoyed it so much last—”

“That was then, this is now. I’m in Normal Person mode. Though I guess someone like you wouldn’t know.” I scoffed. “Speaking of which, let’s get back on track here! How do I go about being a Conjurer?”

As usual, he didn’t look bothered at all by me shoving him and proceeded with his explanation as if nothing ever happened. He stood up and shrugged, holding up his hands. “Well, this is the part where you come up with your own techniques! So I really can’t help you there. What I could do is offer you suggestions, though…as well as a few basic tips.”

“All right, hit me.” I nodded, before then noticing the cheeky expression on his face and quickly adding, “Not literally, jeez!”

“In order to be successful at conjuring, you must decide on the type of thing you want to conjure, and then immerse yourself in it every way possible. You not only have to look at it, but touch it, smell it, and even taste it if you can, for as long as you can. The more you know about that thing inside and out, the better you become able to replicate it out of thin air.”

He then gave me another one of those creepy smiles. “You could really get to know anything that way…in more ways than one… ♦”

“Okay, okay, I got it!” I shivered. Good lord, did I have to fall under a Nen category that required such a creepy method of training? “I’ll find something that I can use for armor or something, since I know I want to be able to make like a power suit out of thin air.”

“Armor materials, eh…?” He just looked at me, amused. “You know...a little birdy told me you were interested in my Bungee Gum.”

I blinked. “What? I mean, yeah, I said it was cool, but I never said it like…”

“Ah ah ah. Don’t think you can hide it from me. Look.”

He held up the glass, where there was still a little bit of that pink substance that was looking oddly like a piece of the actual gum, now that I think about it...frack.

“So you know everything I just said about conjuring? Well...I have a wonderful suggestion. ♥”

Oh no. It better not be what I think he has in mind.

I wasn’t using Gyo on my eyes at that moment, but I could still tell that he was twirling some more of his Bungee Gum aura between his fingers. “How would you like to spend at least few nights wrapped up in these? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I can just tell. ♦”

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—

\---------------------

Urgh.

That stuff got everywhere. Like, in every crack. I was so sore, I don’t think I ever want to do that again.

But on the bright side, at least it only took a week! Although that, hahaha...well, that’s still one week too long. At least now I could start conjuring stuff with some level of decency.

By that point, I had already decided on what sort of special ability I wanted. Yeah, I might have had some protection from my aura shroud alone, but if what Hisoka said was true, it wasn’t enough to block all attacks by a long shot. So I decided that what I needed was a sort of power armor.

...Of course, what with that weeklong bondage session, all I could figure out how to conjure was freaking Bungee Gum, so I needed a few modifications to that. Hisoka said that it combined the properties of both rubber and gum, so if Conjurers could learn things under a similar principle, then maybe all I needed was to combine it with a different substance and then maybe I could create something workable.

Hopefully without having to endure another round of torture like that, that is.

I did at least manage to find something a bit more like the kind of protective gear I was looking for amid the rubble around the hideaway, and by the end of the third week, I had already managed to combine both it and Bungee Gum to create a sort of power armor that I could summon anytime I wanted to.

Hisoka did say that Conjurers couldn’t create anything all powerful or unbreakable, since there was literally no such thing. But hey, at least I did my best to create something that was not only protective, but adaptable. Such as, for example, being able to reflect bullets. Now that I had created the right substance, all I needed now was to practice getting good at using this new ability.

I staggered out of the hideout in the view of the morning sun, ready for another training session, when suddenly, I felt the entire world warp in front of me.

Oh wait. I remembered this feeling.

I braced myself as I landed in the familiar prison cell place aboard the Megacruiser. Once I made sure I had my footing, I looked out the window to the center to see which contestant had died and how. For a second, I was worried that maybe Slix Vigma was calling us because he was wondering where we were stalling, but then I remembered that oh yeah, this contest was a free for all. They didn’t all have to try and kill me first.

One of the doors on the left opened up to reveal a guy whose skin looked like it was being dissolved, and I gasped, having to turn away and stop myself from throwing up. Urgh. Hisoka’s killing spree at my apartment was still pretty bad, but this particular sight was a grim reminder of just how gruesome and deadly this survival game could be.

As per usual, we got to see the instant replay of the battle that transpired, and for once, I could actually focus on it since I didn’t know anything of what was going to happen since I wasn’t in it.

It depicted two guys, the older one looking like an actual magician of sorts (not the fakey kind that Hisoka was), while the other looking more like a normal dude around my age, maybe a bit younger. It sounded like they were in the middle of a heated argument while fighting, with the younger guy accusing the older one of stabbing him in the back ‘later on’. Did the magician guy offer to team up and take on other contestants like how apparently me and Hisoka were doing? Although I was pretty much dead weight to him, while both of these guys were full on Nen users. Well, I was a Nen user now, but not a very good one yet, and I figured that we couldn’t let anyone know I could use Nen now for as long as possible.

Of course, that then got me to worrying. Did Slix Vigma know I could use Nen now? No indication from the alien robot seemed like he was aware of this. But on the other hand, these powers were aura-based, and that meant…

Ah, shit.

I should have used Zetsu, shouldn’t I? Even if Slix Vigma didn't know, maybe the others might have.

While I was worrying about all that, of course, the battle on screen ended when the older magician guy tore at the younger one’s skin with his Nen powers, which was the cause of his death. Oough. I did not want to be up against him.

“Don’t look at me like that…!” The magician guy noticed that everyone else was staring at him, and I didn’t blame him for taking this way worse than someone like, say, Hisoka. “I offered Caelum a chance to live! You saw that! He was the one who was too paranoid and didn’t want to work together! We have to stick together if we’re going to survive this crazy game! Especially against him!”

He pointed at Hisoka, who only looked slightly amused.

Slix Vigma then floated in front of the magician guy. “I do admire your efforts to reach out to your fellow contestants, Claudius Venturi. And while you may regret how your attempt ended, at least know that it provided us all with yet another exciting match. Feel free to try again. Who knows? Maybe it will work out this time.”

Claudius lunged at the window, only to stop short. “FUCK you! I should just KILL YOU BOTH right now!”

Both? He probably was talking about Hisoka too, though I couldn’t be 100% sure.

The alien robot’s head then swivelled around 180 degrees to look in our direction. “And speaking of working together…”

I gulped. Uh oh. Did he know?

“Annie...Hisoka...I have noticed an unusually prolonged absence from you both. I wonder why that is.” He tilted his head. “Have you chosen to perhaps strategize as to wait until all of the other contestants have killed each other off first?”

My eyes widened. Huh. Actually, that was a really good strategy. Even if we were confined to the area around Yorknew City, there was no rule saying we had to kill as many people as possible. All we had to do was stay alive at the very end, regardless of whatever tactics we chose to employ, and heck, Hisoka already killed three people by now. He’d already done more than his fair share.

Of course, knowing Hisoka and his preferences by now…

I turned to his chamber, looking concerned, but he just chuckled and replied, “My my, Slix Vigma, you don’t know me that well, do you? ♠ I relish this opportunity you have given me. ♦ It’s just that I crave a challenge, you see. These last three battles have been all but far too easy! So I figured, we have three months until your bombs go off, correct? There may be some contestants that, should they be left alone, could choose to train themselves to become more powerful in order to increase their odds of survival, you see. And I figured it would be far more pleasurable to beat them down when they’re at their strongest and think they’re the least likely to die. ♥”

I shivered. He was totally describing my situation right now. Sure, he wasn’t mentioning me by name, but how shockingly similar this so-called excuse was to the truth was legitimately terrifying me that maybe he might tip off Slix Vigma by accident. Or more frighteningly, on purpose.

Though Hisoka’s expression was as mysterious and unreadable as usual, so I couldn’t tell which one it even could be.

“Fascinating…” Slix Vigma’s eyes lit up and looked like they had a bunch of data passing over them. Or at least, what I assumed was data. “Most life forms in general, when placed in this sort of survival game, would try to kill everyone else as soon as possible.”

Hisoka shook his head. “Well, then, sorry to disappoint you, my alien friend. But I am not ‘most life forms’.”

“You speak as though you are 100% certain that you will be the victor of this game.”

Hisoka’s eyes narrowed, and his smile grew.

“Maybe so~. We’ll just have to see, now, won’t we? ♦”

\----------------------------

Soon enough, Slix Vigma finally teleported us back to where we were. As soon as we landed back right outside the hideaway, I just realized something.

“Hey, Hisoka?”

“Hmm?” He looked unconcerned as usual by what just happened, as if it was only a minor inconvenience at most.

“You think Slix Vigma knows where we are right now and what exactly we’re doing?” I asked. “I’m just asking since he seemed to know where to teleport us back too. Unless that process is automatic and not something he controls…”

“Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn’t.” Hisoka shrugged his shoulders. “Well, he doesn’t appear to be telling the other contestants. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if it was just me here, but since I have you to train, well…”

Somehow, I still wasn’t convinced it was really out of genuine concern for my well being and more of an inconvenience for him if one of his toys was broken too early. Most likely because that was exactly what it was.

“Anyway, it has been one month since this survival game started, and only one other contestant has been killed by another. Shame. I thought they’d be at each other’s throats a little more by now.” He shrugged. “But hey! More for me. ♥”

I ran ahead a little bit before slowing down, and turned around to face him. “So anyway, today was supposed to be another day of training, wasn’t it? Weren’t you going to help me get good at my new armor ability?”

“Oh yes, Annie...yes we were. ♦”

To my surprise, he chuckled and placed a hand on my shoulder, apparently having caught up and got behind me without me even noticing. “By starting to hunt down the other contestants! And you’re going to help me~.”

I just stared at him like he was crazy. I mean, he already was, but this…

“Wait wait wait wait wait, are you nuts!? I’ve barely even gotten this thing down, and your idea of practice is me helping you fight them…!?”

“Of course. What better way to practice than to be thrown in the middle of an actual life or death match? Now, as to how well you’ll be able to master the ability…” He put a finger to my mouth. “That’ll be up to you. ♣”

That did it. This guy was definitely the Nen teacher nobody asked for.

**To be continued...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there were a couple of scenes where I skipped right over the explicit details, though since they weren't (completely) integral to the plot, I figured I could just hint at them and then keep going. If in the future I do plan to go into more detail, it'll most likely be in a separate series of chapters rated Explicit for that very purpose. Of course, that's assuming I get around to writing them at all. (And make it good enough so that people can actually get off to it.)


	5. Swinging on a Rubber Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To speed along Annie’s mastery of her first personal Nen ability, Hisoka gets the brilliant idea...to go looking for other contestants and fight them! And lo and behold, they encounter two at once. How will they handle Nen users who can attack them in the air and trap them in quicksand on the ground at the same time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of days ago, a part of me realized that some people may think that I should have named this chapter "Schwinging on a Rubber Band." And while I'd agree that such a title would be hilarious, well...that would be false advertising, because Hisoka doesn't exactly schwing here. (At least not yet, anyway.)

“Wait up! Hey! Wait! Wait a second!”

It was all I could do to keep up with Hisoka as he went on ahead of me seemingly with no effort yet was still leaving me in the dust. Never mind the fact that he knew this area of dilapidated buildings better than I did, nor that he had way more years of experience with Nen than I could hope to reach at this rate; it still felt pretty disheartening to lag behind like this. Especially since I used to be able to run pretty well back in the day.

But more importantly than that…

“I said wait!!”

“Hm?” Finally, he bothered to stop and turned around. “Oh, Annie. How did you get that far behind?”

“You know damn well why, Hisoka. Now let me talk,” I gasped, putting my hands on my knees. “Why in the hell do you think it’s a good idea to drag me along on your insane mission to hunt down those other guys? I already told you! I haven’t even gotten my first ability down yet!”

“And I already told you that it was the fastest way for you to get better~.”

I was about to argue the point further, but before I could respond, he continued. “Ah, but seriously, hear me out here. All this time, we’ve been attacked by other contestants first. Of course, they were all those who found you because of where you worked and lived, but that’s beside the point. But you see, we’d be at a far greater advantage if we were the ones who attacked first.”

“Yeah, but…” I furrowed my eyebrows. “...I dunno. This feels kind of wrong to me. Even if it’s better them than us…”

“Trust me, Annie. There is no time to worry about what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in a survival game, let alone this one. Thankfully, I have already put such worries behind me long ago.”

“Yeah. I can tell,” I deadpanned.

Of course I still had reservations about running straight where other contestants could possibly be and increase my chances of getting killed, but at least I could now use Nen. Even if I couldn’t get that power armor thing conjured properly, at least the aura around me could still shield me from the devastating impact of most attacks. At least, that was what I hoped. And besides, as much as I questioned Hisoka’s actions at times, I also had to admit that if he was on your side, he was the safest place to be in a game like this.

I lost track of how far we ran as we climbed over rocks, hills, and broken pieces of dilapidated buildings, but I was soon gasping for air, and it hadn’t even been a few hours yet. At least we were supposedly getting closer to the main city, but man, it felt like it was taking forever. How far away from the city did Slix Vigma say we were allowed to go? 50 miles?

“Dear gosh…” I gasped, probably looking like a wreck and about to collapse from exhaustion any time. “How can you still...keep going…?”

“Oh? I just remembered.” Even after all that, Hisoka still looked like he hadn’t broken a sweat at all. “The first part of this year’s Hunter Exam had us all running for, oh, I think it was...62 miles underground? And then the second part had us running through an entire man-eating forest after that? Yeah, that’s what it was! That probably explains why this is nothing for me. ♣”

My jaw would have hit the floor if I weren’t so dead tired right then. “Jeez...no wonder why people say...the Hunter Exam is...freaking rigged. Or that it has a 99.9999 percent dropout rate.”

“Actually, that would be around 99.993 percent, but you were surprisingly close!”

Hah. I figured, Hisoka could afford to joke around like this. But honestly, if we didn’t do something, I wasn’t even going to be in shape if we ran into another one of those guys. Or worse yet, if they found us. Part of me thought about how Hisoka dragged me around the last two battles in particular and wasn’t even bothered at all, but another part of me really didn’t want to go through something like that again if I didn’t have to. And maybe another part of me thought that now that I could finally use Nen, I’d be able to suddenly become a badass. Guess that wasn’t entirely true, as there was still a lot of work involved to even imagine getting close to Hisoka’s level.

It looked like Hisoka was actually thinking along the same lines I was...or so I thought. Because he suddenly said, “Wait right there if you would, Annie. I think I’ve come up with an idea.”

“An idea for what?”

If the last few ‘ideas’ he had for me were any indicator, I was already getting nervous at what he was thinking of. I quickly used Gyo on my eyes to see if he was trying to pull anything funny on me with that Bungee Gum of his.

Sure enough, there was suddenly a rope of the glowing pink rubbery gumlike substance attached around my waist, as well as the rock I was standing on. “Whoa!! When did you—?”

“I was wondering when you would notice. Ah, but just stay right there anyway. Okay, now. Three...two...one…”

The next thing I knew, I was suddenly being flung several dozen feet high in the air, as if I was just launched from a catapult that I didn’t know was there the whole time. 

“AAAAAAUGH!!”  

Frack frack why did Hisoka think this was a good idea, even if this was a way to get to the city faster, I was going to hit the ground and go splat and die and—

Wait a minute...my armor! I had to use it! If I couldn’t form it, then I’d be dead! Come on, armor, work, work…!

WHAM!

I slammed into what felt like a gummy substance as I hit the ground, but was pretty sure that it was mine since it wasn’t there before. Oh thank god. I could actually conjure something in time. Yeah, it wasn’t the complete kind of armor that I wanted, but even if it still looked a bit too much like Bungee Gum, at least I was still in one piece!

Then I felt a sharp tug at the Bungee Gum around my waist, and the next thing I knew, there was Hisoka at the other end coming in like a rocket at god knows how many miles per hour.

“WHAT THE FU—”

It took everything I had to conjure up another shield just to block the impact from his high speed ascent. Thankfully it was just in time, so even though the impact still knocked me back a little, at least I wasn’t too hurt from it at all.

“Hisoka, what the hell…?” As I staggered to my feet, I got the feeling this wasn’t going to be the last time I’d say those exact words to him. “You nearly killed me! TWICE!!” 

“And this is a survival game~.” He laughed. “But no really, you did very well being able to block both of those impacts. I’d say that you’re getting the hang of your abilities already!”

Why did it not surprise me that he was using his scheme to get to the city faster as an opportunity for more of his so-called training?

I stood up as best as I could, trying to avoid wobbling too much from the impact, and turned towards the city. “So what do we do now? There’s like 8 million people who live in this city alone. Even if we narrow it down to the Nen users, how will we find the remaining contestants?”

“Oh, we can worry about that later,” he mentioned as a matter of fact, looking on ahead. “Chances are, that incredibly showy display of ours probably already attracted one of them. ♦”

I looked at him incredulously. “Wait, what?”

Suddenly, he grabbed me, and leapt ahead just in time for us to dodge what felt like a blade of air from above.

“Oh shit, they found us already!” I exclaimed.

“I was not expecting them to attack from above… ♠” he mused. “But no matter. We can still take them on. ♦”

We ran further into the city along the sidewalks, trying to make it harder for the guy from above to hit us without going through a lot of obstacles first. Heck, we still weren’t entirely sure where he was attacking at the moment, but Hisoka was going to find out soon, wasn’t he?

Suddenly, the sidewalks gave way, and our feet started to sink into the ground. “What the…? What’s going on!?” I exclaimed. “Is it another Nen ability?”

“Perhaps...but one I’ve never seen before. ♠ Wonder if it’s a Specialist...” 

Without another word, I saw him shoot a line of Bungee Gum at a nearby building and rocket us both up there, freeing us from the sudden quicksand. I ended up screaming again, though not as much as I would have normally since I did just catapult here not too long ago.

As soon as we landed on the side of the building, I looked down to try and see what the quicksand pit looked like, only to regret it and cling to Hisoka even more tightly. “Aaaagh, we’re too high up! Quick, Hisoka! What does it look like down there?”

“Didn’t you already see it too? There’s nothing there. The sidewalk looks exactly the same.”

I barely cracked an eye open. “And the pedestrians?”

“They’re stepping right over it, and none of them are sinking in. In fact, some of them are even stopping to stare at us, and they’re definitely not sinking. ♣”

Oh great. People were actually staring at us. I’d be embarrassed if it weren’t for the fact that we were both in mortal danger right now. “And what about those attacks from above?”

“I get the feeling that they’re not from the same person, though I can’t say for sure…”

Then I saw him shoot out another Bungee Gum line to another building, and he yanked us across just in time to dodge another air slash. I wasn’t sure how he was able to sense that, but I’m glad he did, because I didn’t see it coming at all.

On the other hand, we were hurtling through the air at insane speeds high above the ground, and it was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life. So I don’t know which is worse!

In fact, he didn’t even stop at the next building. He just kept leaping from one to another, even though the air slashes didn’t seem to follow us.

“What are you doing!?” I shouted. “I don’t know if I can hang on for much longer!”

“Not to worry, Annie. If all goes well, then we should soon be able to find out who these attackers are! Of course, if you were using Gyo on your eyes, then you’d be able to see what I’ve been up to, but I understand.”

Yeah, if only because we were REALLY HIGH IN THE AIR AGAIN! That seemed to be a common theme along these battles, especially where Hisoka was involved. Unfortunately. 

The next thing I knew, I heard a voice going, “Aw, shit!” right behind us, and we saw a guy crash into what looked like invisible strings. I remembered to use Gyo and see that he had crashed into a Bungee Gum trap that Hisoka had weaved. 

“Well, well. Looks like that’s one mystery down. ♣ Pierre LeBeau, was it? I remember him.”

I sure didn’t. Especially not at this distance, nor the paraglider with wings getup and goggles set he had going on.

“I am fairly sure he was the one behind the aerial attacks; however, I am still not sure about the quicksand user. Regardless, we should finish him off, if only to be rid of one of them. ♦”

I didn’t say anything; neither to object, nor to encourage him. All I wanted was to get off this crazy ride as soon as I could, and even if Hisoka had to kill a few people, I was willing to overlook it this time as well.

He pulled out a card and leapt towards the guy from behind, aiming it for his throat, but then we heard a boy’s voice shout from below, “Hey Pierre, look out! They’re gonna get you!”

Pierre then saw us coming and aimed an air slash at us, freeing himself. Though Hisoka blocked the main brunt of the attack, the rest of it swerved around and cut the Bungee Gum that was holding us up, sending us falling down.

“OH MY GOD WE’RE GONNA DIE, WE’RE GONNA DIE!!” How many times had I said that already? Well, in this case, if Hisoka didn’t do something, we really were!

Thankfully, I felt us being pulled away, and when I opened my eyes, he had stuck another Bungee Gum to a building, and this time, we landed on the ground safely. But then I turned around and saw that the kid who warned Pierre had a card through his hand. Blood was already seeping from the wound, and he was glaring severely at us. He looked like he had the same tanned skin tone as Ellie from before, and he honestly didn’t look that much older than Jenna, maybe even slightly younger. 

“Wait…” I definitely recognized him from the group of competitors. “Don’t tell me…”

“Cheap shot, motherfuckers. But I’ve gotcha now!”

He slammed a hand down to the ground, and suddenly we were being pulled into the ground again, much to the surprise of the onlookers.

“Yeah, that’s right.” The kid smirked. “This quicksand only works on a Nen user, so suck on that, Hisoka!”

Wait, why was he singling Hisoka out? I also had—

Oh yeah, right. Nobody knew that I had Nen powers now. And that fact could potentially be our greatest chance to surprise them and get the upper hand. But I had no idea if Hisoka was also trying to surprise them with that fact or what, especially since he did say that ‘being thrown into battle was the best way for me to get better at my Nen abilities’. 

Plus, I was still hanging onto him. My feet weren’t touching the ground. So that meant if Hisoka didn’t get out of there fast, I’d be dragged in there too, and then this kid would know for sure.

Guess I didn’t need to wait for long, because the next thing I knew, he had already attached Bungee Gum strands to the kid’s face and had used its momentum to not only yank us out of the quicksand, but also the kid forward. I ducked, not wanting my head to crash into his or anything like that.

As it turned out, we shot right past him, and then he crumpled to the ground with blood spurting from his throat.

“ANDY!” shouted the guy above us.

“One down…and look~.” Hisoka landed safely on the ground. “No more quicksand. ♥”

“So that means we don’t have to go back up there again, do we?” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ah, yes...about that…”

I saw a strand of Bungee Gum attach itself to another one of the buildings before we were pulled up there once again.    


“We’re going to have to stay up here a bit longer if we’re going to take Pierre down too. ♦”

If I weren’t hanging on so tightly, I would have thrown my arms up in the air. “Oh, SON OF A—!”

Of course I couldn’t finish that sentence before we were off flying from building to building again, as if swinging on super long invisible rubber bands. Well, invisible unless you were constantly using Gyo on your eyes like I was, and that was starting to wear me out.

After several more minutes of that, it looked like we had gotten so far away from Pierre that we had pretty much lost him. 

“All right...so what’s the plan now?” I asked, still shaking from all the excitement. Not to mention the fact that we were still like several hundred feet above the ground. I only barely registered the fact that we were now clinging to the building where Velmar Comic Studios were located. Couldn’t reminisce about how impossible it was to apply there, nor how my art style would never be passable there in a million years, nope. There was a SURVIVAL GAME to focus on!!

“Well, I don’t think I can use my last strategy. I’ve left behind several Bungee Gum traps, but he dodged all of them, so I had to get away while I’m thinking of something else. ♠”

“Guess he’s actually using Gyo now, huh?” I asked. “You’re right, we’ll have to think of something else—” 

Suddenly, I noticed even more of a crowd gathering on the sidewalks below us than usual, and when I saw a large van with a news symbol on it, I realized why. Reporters. Oh boy. Guess everyone noticed the commotion that was going on with our battle around the city. A part of me should have figured that this was going to happen sooner or later, but still…

What would Selena say now if she saw me on the news? And still being dragged around by Hisoka in the middle of yet another life or death battle?

“This is Katie Current of York News 4, reporting live on the scene! We are in the middle of what looks like a battle between serial killer Hisoka Morow, as well as three unidentified parties, one of whom were slain earlier this afternoon!”

Before I was about to ask Hisoka what we should do, he apparently already started descending towards the reporters.

“Hisoka, what are you doing!? Why are you—?”

“Relax. I’m gonna have some fun with these guys. Maybe it’ll even get them off our back for us if you’re so worried about them getting caught in the crossfire. Now watch and learn. ♣”

I groaned. Whenever Hisoka talked about ‘having fun’, it usually wasn’t a good sign.

The reporter was still in the middle of her speech when Hisoka landed on the actual news van and said, “Ah, yes. Hello, Miss Katie Current. I should explain what’s going on here, because there is no need to panic~.”

The reporter blinked. “I’m sorry, what…?”

“You see, we are in the middle of filming for a movie! Quite an exciting one, in fact. Lots of high intensity action scenes that absolutely must be set in this very city!”

I stared at him like he was crazy, but then he gave me this wink that was pretty much telling me to play along. “Uh, yeah! It’s called, uh…Swinging on a Rubber Band! Er, it’s a working title. I’m sure Marketing can come up with a better name soon enough.” Hopefully my lies didn’t look too obvious.

In a sense, maybe Hisoka himself really could pull that lie off. I mean, who else was dressed like him in this city, wearing makeup and a crazy clown getup? And he was built like a supermodel. He at least totally looked the part. Of course, this was his normal appearance even when not in movies, but still...

The reporter gave us an odd look. “But I don’t see any cameras and crews anywhere around, besides ours here at York News 4. And are those special effects you’re using? They look too real to me…”

“Yes, ma’am, they are. We’ve hired the best special effects and stunt artists around, so we could make this movie as real as possible. And I assure you, there are cameras around. They just happen to be from the Hunter Organization, so they may not be immediately visible.”

“Right…” The reporter didn’t seem that convinced. “So what’s your movie about?”

I panicked, trying to rack my brains for what our movie could possibly be about, but as usual, Hisoka beat me to the punch. “Why, it is an action spy thriller featuring me, Hisoka Morow, playing as a vigilante who dresses like what you see here. He patrols Yorknew City for threats against the peace, and in this particular scene, he is protecting a beautiful young woman from the fiendish Flying Wingman.”

Then he turned to me and narrowed his eyes before turning back to the reporter. “Er...Marketing thought that we could appeal to the female demographic by having her be more homely looking, especially to contrast how handsome the main hero is, as you can see here. ♥”

Wait, did he just indirectly diss me? I mean, sure, maybe I didn’t have perfect hair 24/7, but cut me some slack a little.  

Before I could even argue back, we heard Pierre’s voice from afar. “THERE YOU ARE!”

Hisoka winked and continued. “Anyway, that’s our cue. Now that we’ve cleared that up, could you please remain quiet on the set? We’d like to get through these next few shots in only one take, if you please. ♥”

He didn’t even give her a moment to reply before rocketing off towards Pierre, dodging the next few predictable but still terrifying air slashes.

“So you cowards are finally gonna face me, huh?” he sneered. “That’s fine. I didn’t even need Andy’s help to get you guys up here anyway!”

“Ooh, that’s a good line. ♥ However, I am afraid that you are the one who won’t be walking away from this fight, my boy.”

Was it me, or was it totally unnecessary for Hisoka to pose like that? Especially while hanging off the side of a building with me clinging onto him?

“Hah, maybe if we were fighting me by yourself, you’d have a pretty good chance. Maybe if you had an actual Nen user with you, I’d definitely be screwed. But with that deadweight slowing you down, I bet I can actually beat you!” Pierre gestured towards me. “Now bring it!”

“With pleasure. ♦”

Hisoka reeled back, as if to throw something. But wait. The only thing he had in his arms was...oh no…

“Let’s just see how dead this ‘deadweight’ will truly make you.”

“HISOKA, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!”

He threw me!! The bastard threw me! At Pierre! In midair, high above the ground! He was literally trying to kill me!

This was it. I was actually going to die here. Pierre was going to slash at me in midair and rip my guts out and then send me hurtling down to the ground to splatter the rest of me out on. Not even Hisoka would be able to wave it away as ‘special effects’ by that point.

I had to do something. I didn’t care whether my powers should be kept a secret anymore. I instantly brought to mind the strongest sensations of my power armor as I possibly could…

And never hit him. Instead, it looked like Pierre actually got out of my way, and I felt as if I was being pulled back around to try to hit him again.

“What the fuck was that…!?” he gasped before turning around to see me. “No fucking way! How did…!?”

I smashed right into him before he could say anymore. Or at least, it wasn’t me smashing him nearly as much as Hisoka was yanking me into him, as if he knew I was going to use my ability and decided to use that as a weapon that Pierre would never expect. And his gamble apparently paid off. In fact, I didn’t even realize when Hisoka attached a Bungee Gum rope to my back. No wonder he bothered throwing me in the first place.

The impact smashed Pierre’s mechanical wings off, causing him to fall to the ground, screaming to his death. I couldn’t look as I heard the splat. Just seconds ago, that could have been me. I swear to god that could have been me.

“Well done~.” Hisoka caught me just in time. “You see? Nothing better than an actual life or death match for you to develop your abilities the fastest. ♣”

I wanted to scream at him, but I was too shaken to get anything out. Besides, I was really more grateful than anything else that I *didn’t* die just now, but at the same time...did he really have to keep me in the dark like that? Did he think that if he didn’t tell me this plan ahead of time, that I wouldn’t have the guts to pull it off and try to back out of it?

Maybe he was right. Maybe I would have tried to back out. And that was the scariest part of all.

At least we didn’t remain hanging off the side of a building anymore. He instead went up onto the flat roof, where I could finally get off and catch my breath. Maybe not entirely, since we weren’t on the ground still, but certainly a lot better than being in midair this whole time and wearing my knuckles out so badly.

I didn’t have any time to say anything else, though, because then Hisoka reminded me. “Hmm...Slix Vigma should be beaming us up to his ship in three...two...one…”

And sure enough, that twisty sensation where the entire world got fuzzy came on as he said it would (lucky bastard, was he actually keeping track?), and the next thing I knew, I was back on the ship again.

I clambered up to peer through the windows and saw only two other people besides me and Hisoka. Still wasn’t sure what was up with that mysterious invisible contestant, since I knew according to Slix Vigma that there was supposed to be three.

Either way, it hit me how soon this game was ending. Only two or three people left, and then...it was just me and Hisoka…

The two chambers where Pierre and Andy were kept in opened up to reveal their dead bodies; Andy’s a lot cleaner, while Pierre...ugh, did this guy had ANY qualms about bringing in mass amounts of bloody carnage on his ship? Then again, I guess Slix Vigma was an alien robot, so of course he wouldn’t be disgusted and overcome with nausea the way I was.

I was so out of it that I didn’t really pay attention to the video playbacks that he was showing us after that, nor did it register to me the irony about how the excuse that Hisoka made to that news lady about us ‘filming a movie’ actually was kind of true. Except that it was Slix Vigma’s show, and none of us really had much say in the way he filmed it.

“Well, well, well...only five left. Fascinating how the moment I noted a lull in the action, it ended up picking right up. And not one, but two people died in the same battle. Ha ha, I almost cannot fathom what to do next!”

Of course, nobody was laughing except for him, and maybe Hisoka too in his own twisted way. 

“Oh? Well, you are the host of this show, Slix Vigma.” Hisoka smiled. “And there are two months left, correct? I myself would prefer to pick off the remaining contestants slowly, one by one, and savor their deaths, but, well...if you’d rather have it end early, I can certainly do that too!”

He...he was probably talking about me too, wasn’t he? But he did say that he would save me for last...although suddenly, that was looking less and less appealing as time went on.

“Ah, but that was a shocking twist at the end, there,” said the robot. “Who knew that young Annie Neptunia was actually a latent Nen user this whole time? Did you, Hisoka?”

The remaining two people I could see, surprisingly enough, didn’t react all that much. In fact, they only seemed more disgusted and irritated than surprised. Maybe they were hoping I’d be an easy kill, but now suddenly I wasn’t anymore. Maybe they already got their surprise out when watching the video that I was zoning out during. Or maybe they were disgusted at the fact that Slix Vigma grabbed a normal person who suddenly discovered they had Nen powers halfway through the game, but since only one person could win, that would be a huge loss of potential if they died. I honestly couldn’t tell. 

Hisoka, meanwhile, only responded cryptically with, “Who can say? I was certainly delighted, at least. ♥”

Calling it right here. Hisoka knew I was a latent user this whole time. Why else would he bother protecting me even back against Jenna that day, even if his supposed main motivation was to take advantage of the fact that all the other contestants were after me because they thought I’d be an easy kill? The more time I spent around him, the more convinced I became that the guy was constantly hiding secrets like that.

Maybe even Slix Vigma knew that fact about me too from Day 1. He was an alien robot, after all. I couldn’t even tell how half of the tech on his ship worked in the slightest. And I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to pick me just in case a development like this happened later.

Right then, a voice from the magician-looking guy from one of the chambers spoke to me. “Annie Neptunia, huh? I have something to say to you.”

I perked up and turned to face him. “Uh, yeah…?” This was weird. None of the other contestants have ever actually addressed me before like this. They were usually too busy panicking about their impending doom, cursing at Slix Vigma, or cursing at Hisoka to really pay any attention to me, the one person who wasn’t a Nen user. Until now.

“Meet me by the abandoned theme park at the edge of the city tomorrow night at 8. And don’t bring that bastard Hisoka along with you. You do know which one I’m talking about, right?”

I thought for a bit. “You mean Sabbean’s Theme Park?” 

“That’s the one. Used to be all the rage back in the day, but now...”

“Er...Claudius, right?” I hope I was remembering his name right.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Why do you want to meet with me, anyway?” I was honestly curious since I literally didn’t know this guy.

“...I’ll tell you when you meet me there,” he replied. “And like I said, don’t bring that bastard Hisoka along. If you know what’s good for you.”

Yikes. He already sounded pleasant to deal with.

I honestly had no idea what to make of this development. Why did this random contestant choose to talk to me only now? Was it because of the fact that I now had Nen? And what was up with not bringing Hisoka along? That was almost suicide at this point. Maybe not as suicidal as it used to be, since I could now use Nen, but I was still developing my special abilities, so I was still at a severe disadvantage compared to those who had been doing this for years.

All the same, regardless of what would go down if I did choose to meet him...the fact remained that there were only five contestants left in this game. Two of them were me and Hisoka.

That meant that there were only three battles left, at most...until the day came when we’d be the only ones left.

And only one of us could walk away from this game alive.

**To be continued...**


	6. A Man With a Vengeance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A contestant named Claudius Venturi has asked Annie to meet him at an abandoned park, and it turns out he has a major grudge against Hisoka. He tries to get Annie to leave Hisoka and join his side, but then Hisoka shows up and reveals a secret between him and Annie that angers Claudius so much he attacks them. Not good at all...

Well, we managed to get back to the hideaway while dodging the paparazzi. Although I will say this: Hisoka did most of the work. Thank god he didn’t try any other crazy shenanigans like catapulting me 50 miles out of town, or else that bomb in my heart might have exploded early and that would have been an embarrassing way to die.

In fact, most of what he did was rather surprising. He used his other ability called Texture Surprise (no pun intended) to cover up the places where the buildings got damaged by Pierre’s air slash attacks. Of course, it was just billboards he pulled in order to transform their surfaces to look like the walls of the buildings, and anyone who actually touched those parts would realize that they were indeed just billboards. But it certainly would be enough to fool the average person who looked at it after the fact. 

You know. Just not the ones who were watching him covering up those holes the whole time. Of course he waved it off as being ‘part of the movie’ that was something new they were trying to depict in these action movies where they damage the cities like crazy in these battles yet nobody ever sees anyone trying to fix them.

Who knew that what I had expected to be just a simple training session ended up exploding into something this nuts? Not only did Hisoka drag me on a mission to hunt down the other competitors, but two of them found us. And not only that, but we killed them, so there were just five of us left, and now one of them named Claudius had asked me to meet him at the abandoned Sabbean Theme Park tomorrow night and was insistent that I didn’t bring Hisoka along with me. 

“Hey, Hisoka?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you really think I should meet up with Claudius tomorrow night like he said? It doesn’t sound right, how he doesn’t want you there too...Do you know anything about that?”

“Ah, that. ♠” He didn’t seem too concerned. “Well, during my career as a Nen user, having only recently becoming an official Hunter, I have had many jobs that required me to dispatch people in my way, or even as an outright requirement of the job. Whether that be to kill leaders of rival gangs, or stop certain criminals for whom prison has proven to not be sufficient enough to reform, there have certainly been many people who might have lost those they know or care about because of my actions. I imagine Claudius might be one of those affected, though I cannot say for sure.”

I sighed. A man with a grudge against Hisoka, huh? Yeah, I could see that happening. Hisoka was technically a serial killer, wasn’t he? At least that was what the news called him. Without a Hunter License, there really wouldn’t be much he could rely upon to get away with the fact that the things he did as a Nen user would be rather questionable at best.

Although it occurred to me that with his abilities, he easily could have picked jobs that didn’t require offing people’s heads. By themselves, Bungee Gum and Texture Surprise were not lethal abilities. In fact, the average person using them would probably complain about how seemingly useless they were in battle. But of course, knowing Hisoka, he probably had no choice but to pick jobs that required assassination and stuff, what with his constant bloodlust and all. No wonder he was a serial killer.

He turned around and walked toward the exit before pausing right before the stairs. “Although if you wanted my advice, I would go right ahead and meet with him. Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting and get him angry enough to come after you personally, would you?”

I shook my head. “No, I wouldn’t...I mean, even if he didn’t know where this hideaway was, we’d have to face him eventually, and if he’s mad from something silly like that, well…”

I briefly wondered what I should do in case things got bad. Normally I’d bring my pepper spray, but that sort of thing tended to not be very effective against Nen users of all people. And besides, I’m pretty sure that was another thing Hisoka had burned down in my apartment. Bastard.

Still, it was worth at least hearing him out, right? And knowing Hisoka, he’d probably tag along anyway from a distance and intervene if things got bad. What with how particular he was with his ‘toys’ being broken early and all.

\-----------------

That being said, I might have been able to master a unique ability of my own, but it was pretty much a defensive one. I needed to think of something offensive in order to actually fight back against these high powered Nen users. 

I did tell Hisoka that if yesterday was any inspiration, then maybe for my next ability, I could try something like conjuring up a small mini spaceship that I could ride in and control. That way, he wouldn’t have to constantly carry me around whenever he decided to fight from high up, and I could fire laser blasts at people. He did warn me about the laser blasts since that sounded like an Emitter ability, which I’d be by far the worst at since it was at the exact opposite end of the Nen chart from Conjurers. So I decided to think about some other method of attack.

He let me off the hook for the day in terms of training, though, since he knew I might need all my energy for tonight in case the meeting with Claudius went poorly. My nerves were still pretty wracked since I had no idea what was going to happen, or if I’d even survive all that well if it truly came down to a fight.

Well, only one way to find out. It was do or die time.

Right at 8 pm, when the sun was starting to set, I managed to make my way over to Sabbean Theme Park. It went against my better instincts since I usually liked to be at home or in the hideaway by the time it got dark, but I couldn’t exactly find Claudius early so I could argue with him about the time. And plus, the abandoned theme park looked creepy.

Speaking of which, I had no idea where to actually meet the guy. He said the park, but where exactly in it? The entrance? The merry go round? Where? 

“So you actually came.”

I looked up to see that Claudius was standing right on top of the park gates, and I leapt back, ready for anything. “Y—yeah…? So what did you want from me?”

He jumped off of the gates and walked up to the center of the clearing, between me and the haunted house building. “I just wanted to ask you a question, that’s all.”

A question, huh? Looking closely at the way he was standing, he certainly didn’t look like he was just going to ask questions. I had to be prepared for anything, though at least this once, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “...Okay, shoot.”

Then he leapt at me with his hands glowing with bright green energy, and it was all I could to do conjure up my shield in time. 

“What the fuck!?” I shouted instinctively, though could you blame me? Here this guy was claiming he was going to ask me a question, and then he pulls something like this!

But as it turned out, his hands never even reached my shield. Instead, they were being held back by strong pink ropes of...Bungee Gum…?

I glanced up and gasped. Hisoka had followed me out here and was standing on top of the haunted house building right behind Claudius.

“Aaah...I know I was not supposed to follow her, but you see, Claudius...I don’t really like it when someone tries to break my toys. ♠”

Totally called it.

But to my surprise, Claudius didn’t look as angry as I thought. Instead, without even turning around, he said, “I know, Hisoka. That you’d show up anyway. And besides, this tells me everything I need to know. Annie…”

I gasped and turned to Claudius. “Uh, yeah…?”

“You’re letting Hisoka influence your Nen abilities a little too much, aren’t you?”

I took a step back. “Wh—what are you talking about? He was the only Nen teacher around...How was he messing me up...?”

By this point, Hisoka yanked Claudius’ hands so that he fell to the ground, and then jumped off the building and landed right next to me.

Claudius struggled to get himself back up so he could face the serial killer. “You...yeah, you probably taught her the basics just fine, all right...but you didn’t tell her how dangerous it was to give suggestions as to what kinds of abilities each Nen user could choose to develop on their own, did you…?”

I gulped and turned to Hisoka. “Dangerous? What does he mean?”

He didn’t seem too concerned that he was being called out here. “What he means is what I warned you about choosing abilities that don’t complement your type well. Like if you were to learn Emitter-based attacks. You’d be wasting your potential on abilities far weaker than if you’d chosen otherwise.”

“It’s more important than that, you monster!” Claudius shouted, getting back up. “You’re trying to get her to learn Bungee Gum-like attacks since you KNOW she can’t use them the way that you can! You’ll be able to slaughter her easily when she’s the last one left!”

I gasped. Claudius has a point. Hisoka was also a contestant in this game, and like everyone else, he was in it to win. How could I be sure he was actually teaching me about Nen the right way, especially when it was so secret to begin with?

“Is…is that true?” I asked, shaking.

“Oh… ♠” This was probably one of the few times I saw him falter even a little bit. But even so, he looked far less concerned than someone in his position really should have been. “It is true that Nen users frown upon influencing one another's development of their own personal Nen abilities. However, you have to look at it this way. We all only have three months to live at most. And personally, it is in my best interest to make you as powerful as you possibly can by that time, regardless of whatever method I have to resort to. I do crave a good challenge, after all. ♦”

Claudius shook his head. “You say that, but I still see through your plan, clown. You're screwing her over on purpose so you can win, regardless of how strong she does get this way.”

I was still shaking. “But what else am I supposed to do!? This guy burned my apartment to the ground! And even if I were to get a new one, you guys would just find me there and do whatever it takes to kill me! Even if it means getting innocent people caught in the crossfire, like how Ellie did!”

“Ellie was a fool, Annie. What I was trying to tell you is that I can save you from Hisoka. I can train you in Nen the right way, and together, we can finally kill this bastard once and for all!”

I gulped and stared at the ground for the longest time, trying to think it through. 

“...I want to believe you, Claudius. I really do. But you're a contestant too. How am I supposed to know you won't just slit my throat when my guard is down and—?”

Before I could even finish my sentence, Hisoka wrapped his arm around my waist and pinned me to his side. “Aww, Annie...I’m shocked! Don't tell me you were actually considering leaving me! Am I not good enough for you?” 

Then he smirked as he finished his sentence. “...In bed? ♥”

Oh fucking shit.

“You did what with him…?” I could hear Claudius getting more pissed off by the second.

“Ah, no, I…” This was getting out of hand. I had to do something, but what?

“Oh, I know everything about her. More than you ever could, Claudius. Inside and out. And I assure you, she enjoyed it. ♦ Isn’t that right, Annie?”

Before I could even respond, Hisoka already had his hands around my face and brought a kiss to my lips, cutting me off. 

“!!?” I tried to shout out in surprise, but it only ended up sounding like a moan since he put his tongue in my mouth. Uh-oh. Not good…!

“YOU FUCKING WHORES!!”

Claudius lost it. He lunged towards us, trying to kill us both. I tried to break free of Hisoka’s grasp so I could dodge it, but he didn't budge; instead just holding his hand out to block the attack by covering it with Bungee Gum.

Only for us to react with surprise when the energy from Claudius’ hands ended up actually tearing through the Bungee Gum and melting it to pieces.

“Hisoka!!”

I quickly conjured up a piece of my shield right over him just in time. Claudius might have still hit him through my shield, but at least this way, the worst of the acidic effects were mitigated, and the impact sent us all to the ground, giving us at least enough time to catch our breaths and try to get away from the guy.

“Thanks, Annie…” Hisoka gasped, although he didn't seem to notice the injury on his shoulder blade where the attack managed to graze him. “That was unexpected… ♠”

“Hurry up and let’s go before he gets up!”

Much to my surprise, he still had enough energy in his unhurt arm to drag me away so that we were able to get on the roof of the merry-go-round.

And not without a moment to spare; Claudius got right back up and was on the pursuit, appearing on the roof too. “You’re not getting away this time, you bastard! You, or your little whore!”

He lunged at us yet again, but I blocked him, especially since Hisoka looked like he wasn’t moving at the moment. What was going on? He usually was the one who was a lot better at this. 

But my anger was far more focused on Claudius. “You said you were gonna save me from Hisoka, huh? And now look at how quickly you changed your mind! Why the hell does our personal business matter so fucking much to you, you asswipe!?”

I usually didn't use language this strong, but in this case, I was so pissed that it was a definite exception. This was the exact reason why I didn’t want anyone to know about what me and Hisoka did in the first place.

He didn’t back off, instead continuing to punch at my shield, and retorted, “Oh yeah, forgive me for being pissed off at the fact that you fucked the asshole who murdered my whole family!”

My breath got caught in my throat, and I took a step back, forcing me to fall backwards from his attack and from losing focus of my shield. 

Hisoka managed to catch me just in time, although he didn’t seem too worried about how he apparently had a disadvantage in this fight. “I like that you’re conveniently leaving out the part how they hunted me down for killing the true culprit of the John Doe murders. ♠ Aren’t you from the famed and respectable Venturi clan?”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why you’re a liar! There was no proof Moritonio was ever behind those murders, and you know it!”

I had no idea what the two of them were even talking about, but even though Claudius already told me what I knew to be true about Hisoka, given the circumstances, I still had to take Hisoka’s side. At least he didn’t treat me like a piece of shit over something private I didn’t even want anyone to ever know.

Even if he was the one who blabbed his big fat mouth about it in the first place.

Well, I’d give him an earful about it later. Right now, we had to focus on surviving this crazy guy’s attacks.

“Annie, we're leaving.”

Before I knew it, Hisoka had scooped me up by the stomach and took off, jumping across the roofs of the abandoned theme park attractions and forcing Claudius to come after us.

“No you're not! Come back here, you cowards!” he roared.

“Tell me about your history with the guy after this is over,” I said to Hisoka. “Right now, we need a plan. That guy can apparently cut right through your Bungee Gum. And my power armor, to some extent.”

“Indeed. Knowing him, his grudge against me is so strong that he developed his Nen abilities specifically to counteract mine. ♠ But no worries.” He smirked. “I wouldn't have won every single battle I’ve ever been in if that's all it took to stop me. ♦ And besides, I still have to win you over, don't I? ♥”

Suddenly, I felt him give my butt a quick squeeze, and I winced. “Did you have to do that just now...?” Man, this guy was relaxed.

“What?” He smiled impishly. “You have a nice a—”

“LOOK OUT!”

I pointed behind him, where Claudius managed to catch up to us with what looked like a super speed ability.

“Not to worry, Annie. I’ve got this. ♦ Though I may need your help.”

The next thing I knew, Claudius had managed to catch up right to us when he suddenly tripped on a strand of Bungee Gum that he hadn’t noticed. It still dissolved when it touched him, but it was still enough to send his face flat onto the ground.

Taking the opportunity, I decided to finally go on the offensive and slammed a hard, armor-powered axe kick right into his back. 

“GAH!” he shouted, looking like he wanted to curse at us both if it weren’t for the fact that his lungs were being crushed at the moment.

I was about to follow it up with another axe kick, but then I heard Hisoka’s voice. “Annie, move.”

The fact that he said it at normal volume and with that usual cold, chilling voice of his ironically enough made me move away from Claudius even faster than usual, since by now I knew Hisoka well enough that he was about to unleash a truly brutal attack that would cement his victory.

And sure enough, not a second too soon, Hisoka himself flew in from above and slit Claudius’ throat from behind. I don’t think the guy even saw it coming.

I just stood there in a daze, gazing at the blood splattered across the roof from his corpse, hardly believing that this guy who pissed me off so much was now suddenly dead just like that. Thinking over it, I really shouldn’t have been so surprised since six people in this survival game had died right in front of me so far, counting Claudius just now, and of those six, I contributed the most in terms of both his and Pierre’s deaths in particular. But even so, Hisoka did most of the work, if not all of it for everyone else, and...well…

There were only two contestants left now…

Hisoka took a look at the card he used to slit Claudius’ throat, now covered in blood, and flipped it about in the wind rather playfully. He then turned to me expectantly, as if he knew I had something to say to him, but at the moment, it was as if I was completely drawing a blank. 

Not that it mattered anyway, because in the next moment, we were being teleported to the Megacruiser yet again.

By now I was all too familiar with this old song-and-dance that I almost completely checked out. I did try to look like I was paying attention, just in case Slix Vigma suddenly decided to turn my way and ask me something, but for the most part, I was cringing at the video playback and the fact that it apparently started the moment Claudius unleashed his attack on me.

Great. Now everyone here knew that me and Hisoka banged at least once. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Thanks a lot, Claudius. You asshole. 

Or at least, that was what I thought, until I remembered that, wait...there really were only two contestants left. What did it matter at this point? Especially if we end up killing them soon enough?

But then Hisoka caught my attention when he spoke up. “Only two contestants left, hm…? Allow me to ask once again, Slix Vigma. There is only one winner allowed in this game, and you will deactivate the Nen bomb placed in the heart of whoever you determine to be the last one alive...is that it?”

“Yes, that is correct.” The four eyed robot alien nodded.

“And this last one left alive...are you truly going to let them go and allow them to live their lives as usual again, and you will depart this planet to start this game again on another?”

This time, there was a longer pause than usual. Or was I imagining it?

Maybe I was, because Slix Vigma continued on as if nothing had happened. “...Of course, of course! But Hisoka, I thought you already knew all of this. Why would you be asking these questions once again?”

Hisoka shook his head. “My my, Slix Vigma, I thought you’d understand! ♠ This is a survival game, is it not? And we are down to the last four contestants. We have to remind them what truly lies ahead for them if they were to survive so that they would continue to fight their hardest, you know? Now of course, I don’t need to be reminded...but I’m sure *she* would like to know. Wouldn’t you...Helen Wakeman?”

I turned to the middle aged lady who Hisoka was suddenly talking to, and the only visible contestant left besides me and Hisoka. We still hadn’t been able to find out who was behind that other door next to her so far, and from the expression on Helen’s face, it didn’t look like she was going to reveal any clues as to who they could possibly be, either. 

In fact, she had been pretty quiet over the last few times we were teleported up here. Then again, I remembered her as being the wife of that guy who apparently had died the very first day of the survival game, before I ever found out about all of this nonsense. I couldn’t begin to imagine how she was feeling even after all this time.

“Hmph...I guess you two will be coming after me, then. Very well. Don’t think I’ll go down as easily as the rest.” She glared at Hisoka. “I’ll be the one to stop you both, no matter what.”

And as usual, such threats only made Hisoka more excited. “I look forward to it. ♦”

\-------------------

Finally, Slix Vigma let us go, and we were teleported back to where we used to be, back on the roofs of the abandoned theme park. It was still dark outside, but the lights from the city nearby made it so that even if we couldn’t see the stars, we could at least see each other, barely.

“Well, Annie?” Hisoka continued to look at me expectantly. “Didn’t you have something to tell me?”

“Oh yeah…” Yeah, I remembered now. I slowly got to my feet and then glared at him, folding my arms. “Why the hell did you tell Claudius about our personal business? I thought I told you not to tell anyone, ever. How am I supposed to trust you after that?”

“Ah. That. ♠” Once again, judging by the look on his face, he didn’t seem surprised at all. “The truth is, there is still much about Nen I need to teach you, and I very well can’t do that if you’re running off to see other guys, you know. ♠”

I continued to glare at him, not amused at his jokes. But at this point I was struggling to keep such a front, especially after Claudius’ death rendered this whole thing kind of pointless.

“But another thing. Yes, I’m aware that you hate me enough to keep your distance despite our getting intimate at times. And that’s good~. However, I honestly wonder if you hate me enough to actually want to kill me when the time comes.”

My eyes widened, and I gulped. “What…?” Quite honestly, I think I had pushed that reality in the back of my mind for quite a while now, not wanting to think about it. Or maybe I was doing so because I was completely convinced that it would instead be the other way around.

“Like I was saying to Claudius earlier, I know you better than anyone else, Annie. Inside and out. And you can’t fool me. You’re not the type who likes to fight, and you’ve never killed anyone before. Not without my help, anyway. So I wondered what would happen if I did something to anger you on purpose.”

He continued to pace back and forth. “I guess that wasn’t a good test, since in the end, you stuck with me instead of going to Claudius since he seemed to have angered you more. But even so, it seems we still have a long way before you can properly satisfy me… ♠”

I blushed and gulped. “Yeah, uh, I…sorry, I still can’t suck your di—”

“No no no, Annie, not that.”  He placed his hands on my shoulders. “The very reason I’m training you in the first place is because you have more potential than anyone else here in this game. Don’t you forget that. And it is so I can have a battle worthy of my time at the very end. ♦ But Annie. I can’t get the battle from you I crave so much if you don’t fight me with the intent to kill me when the time comes. ♠”

Then he leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “How about this? If you fail to satisfy me in our final battle, after all I’ve done for you...I’m not going to give you a quick, merciful death. Oh no. I’m going to drag it out for so long that you'll be begging for it to end.” 

My heart raced. I could literally feel the bloodlust coming from his aura right now. And he didn’t need to tell me anything for me to get an idea for all of the ways he was thinking about torturing me if it ever came to that. 

Then just as soon as it started, it stopped, and he let go of my shoulders, giving me the most out-of-place smiley face ever. “Are we clear?”

I was still shaking, but managed to nod anyway. “Y—yeah…”

“Good. ♥ Let’s go.”

As we left to head back to the hideaway, I couldn’t help but shiver. Hisoka was right. About everything.

Would I even be able to kill him when the time came? He might be a serial killer, not to mention an absolutely terrible person, but even so, I had a hard time bringing myself to go through with taking another life. Which was exactly what this survival game was all about. And the amount of time I’ve had to spend with him so far certainly didn’t help. 

One month had passed, and there were still two more months to go before we had to kill each other, one way or another.

I certainly hoped, with all my heart, that it would be enough time.

**To be continued...**


	7. You'll Never Find Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are two contestants left besides Annie and Hisoka, who then go on the hunt. After weeks of constant patrolling, they eventually find one of them. However, she is an extremely advanced Nen user with decades of experience who has an ominous message for them. What could it mean…?

Two contestants left, besides us. No pressure or anything, am I right?

At the very least, we got back to the hideout okay. I don’t quite remember what I dreamed about last night, but I was pretty sure it involved my anxieties regarding the impending end. Probably including a few ways I could die, but I couldn’t be too sure. All I remembered was Hisoka’s threat about how if I didn’t fight him with the intent to kill, then he’d make me pay dearly for it.

Seems kind of weird that I’d forget a dream that scary, huh? But as soon as I woke up…

“Good morning, Annie. ♥”

Speak of the devil. He had already gotten in my bed without me even noticing last night. Well, technically his bed, but close enough.

I sighed and narrowed my eyes, staring right into the face of the guy who was making this bed way more crowded than it needed to be. “Hisoka, if you think doing stuff like this is supposed to make me want to kill you even more, you’re doing it wrong. Not after what we already did. Several times.”

He quirked an eyebrow and smiled. “Oh? Does that mean that you’d be ready to give it another go right now—?”

“SHUT UP, stupid!” I took a swing at him, and he danced out, catching my arm pretty easily.

“Now that’s more like it. ♥”

I rolled my eyes and turned my head back towards the wall, already onto his game. Hah, if he thought going without his clothes would provoke some sort of reaction out of me, the joke’s on him. Besides, there were more important matters to attend to.

“Hey, don’t forget! You said you were going to start teaching me more advanced Nen stuff today, weren’t you?” I reminded him.

“Ah yes.” I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him getting in the shower. “There may only be two contestants left besides us, but I could tell even when in the Megacruiser. Helen Wakeman may be one of the strongest Nen users of them all. She’s been a professional Hunter for many years, after all. So it would be in my best interests for me to start teaching you all of the advanced techniques before we head on after her. Assuming she doesn’t decide to try and track us down herself, of course. ♦”

He didn't need to tell me the other reason; it was blatantly obvious by this point.

“Well, ready whenever you are,” I said, wishing I still had my iPhone with me so I could pass the time. But of course, it had burned down in that fire Hisoka set to my apartment. Bastard.

“Oh? Are you sure you don't want to take a shower first? In fact, there’s enough room in here for—”

“I said shut up!!” Christ, what an asshole.

\---------------

Inappropriate comments aside, at least Hisoka was serious about the whole training thing. The actual warm ups (if you count running 5 miles around the dilapidated buildings as “warm ups”) were similar to the training sessions from before, but now I was going to learn these new advanced Nen techniques. Apparently Gyo was already an advanced technique to begin with, so I didn’t have to worry about that. All that mattered was finding out which one I was going to learn first, as Hisoka said I was going to start learning like three of them today. Assuming I still had enough energy after these so called warm-ups.

So there he was, sitting on a rock like the lazy bastard he was as I finished the loop and was glad to finally be able to stop, rest, and get a drink from the water bottle that was there the whole time. It wasn’t until after I had downed the entire bottle (no thanks to running in the HOT JULY WEATHER) that I noticed that there was an assortment of stuff on the rock next to it, including a knife, a frying pan, a stick, and a glove.

I just stared at them. What. The heck.

“Go ahead and pick one”, he said, with that smug look on his face as if he knew everything that was going on and wasn’t telling me on purpose in order to troll me.

I looked from him to the items and back again. “Uh...what?”

“I said go ahead and pick one. I’ll tell you how it has to do with what I’m about to teach you. Honest~.”

Yeah, sure. Why doesn’t he just explain to me what I’m going to be learning and then let me make whatever weird choice this is after the fact? Probably going to screw myself over anyway. Either way, it looked like he wasn’t going to budge until I played along with his silly game, so I sighed and looked over all my options.

The one object that really stuck out to me was the knife, probably because it was the only thing that was actually a weapon. On one hand, I was worried about whatever he was going to teach me and maybe he put it there just to mess me up, but on the other hand, I honestly didn’t want him to end up taking the knife for himself. Yeah, I might have been able to conjure armor, but if this guy could slit people’s throats with solitaire cards of all things, I didn’t want to know what he could do with an actual knife.

I bent down to pick it up, looking warily at him the whole time.

“Oh~. You’re probably thinking, ‘if he can kill people just with cards, I don’t want to know what he can do with an actual knife’, aren’t you?”

Urk. That son of a bitch. I tried not to tip him off how irritated I was that he apparently read what was going through my head at the moment, but it probably didn’t work, because he just laughed even more.

“Cut the crap, Hisoka. What’s your point?” Man, I was so tempted to just point that knife at him at that very moment, but I held myself back, because the last thing I needed was for him to catch onto that as well and make another snide comment about it.

“But Annie, that *is* the point. Have you ever wondered why I’ve been able to kill people so easily like that?”

I blinked and stared. Huh. That was surprisingly straightforward of him. “I admit the thought crossed my mind several times, but I guess I was always too distracted by the fact that, well, those guys just DIED in front of us. Knowing you, you probably wouldn’t understand.”

He ignored my backhanded insult as usual and stood up, walking over to the pile of stuff and looking as though he were about to grab one of the objects, but then instead pulled a card out of thin air and had yet another smug look on his face, as if he was cheating and got away with it. “Watch closely. ♦”

I wasn’t sure where to look, or even whether I should use Gyo on my eyes, but I decided to do so while staring at the card, just in case.

The aura that normally surrounded his body expanded to cover the card as well, and then he reared back and slammed it into the rock, breaking it into pieces and sending the objects flying everywhere.

“What the hell, Hisoka!?” I barely dodged the fragments in time. Honestly, I should have expected such things by now, so at this point, it was really more of a rhetorical question than anything else.

“This technique is called Shu. It allows you to expand your aura to the objects you’re holding in order to make them more powerful. I figured that while you were thinking about an offensive ability of your own, I could give you some inspiration, as well as a few options. After all, how can you kill anyone, let alone me, if you don’t have some way to attack?”

I shivered, remembering that last battle against Claudius. I was so angry at the things that guy said that for the first time, I actually did want to kill a person. And yet all I could do was just defend myself and Hisoka from his acid punches or whatever he was using to cut through Bungee Gum…

I looked at the knife I was holding, wondering if I’d really be able to kill Hisoka in one shot with it if I used whatever this Shu technique was. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? It looked like all he did was just use Ten and instead of having it be just around his body, expand it to cover the card he was holding, right…?

The next thing I knew, the knife became enveloped in my aura, and I took a step back, surprised. Wait, it was really that easy?

“Oh! I didn’t even have to tell you how to do it. ♣” He clapped. “But then again, what else did I expect from one with such...immense potential as yourself? Now go ahead and try it out.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. Heck, the creepy voice he was already starting to seep back into was enough to make me want to stab something. 

So I aimed at yet another rock nearby, where I thought the fragments might possibly get close to hitting him, and stabbed it.

The resulting fragments didn’t even come close to hitting him, of course, but the fact remained that I could already feel the incredibly difference Shu made for this knife, as normally, such a stunt like that would have broke it in half. 

“My my, now that’s a surprise. I half expected you to actually stab me~.”

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, I tried to avoid his gaze. “Well, I mean, just because I say I’m gonna kill you doesn’t mean I actually *can* kill you…”

“If you’re saying that because you’re afraid you might accidentally kill me before I get to teach you the rest about Nen, then don’t worry about it. I’m well equipped to handle anything, you know. ♦ But if it’s more than that, then need I remind you… ♠”

“I know, I know!” I didn’t need to be reminded of all of the possible ways he was going to give me a slow, painful, humiliating death if I couldn’t satisfy him in our theoretical final battle. 

“Good. ♥ All the same, I want to see you practicing with that knife 100 times a day from now on. I’m sure you’ll get used to it. In time.”

Ugh. If that didn’t sound ominous, than I don’t know what does. Then again, we were in a survival game. It was honestly only thanks to his being insanely good at killing people that I was able to survive for this long. And I knew I couldn’t rely on him forever.

...I just hoped that he would be the only person I would ever have to kill in my life.

\-----------------------------

Over the next couple of weeks, in addition to the knife—I’m sorry, Shu training, Hisoka also got me started on two other techniques. The first was Ryu, which was basically Gyo but with the enhanced aura being applied to any part of your body at any concentration you wanted in real time, which was absolutely crucial when it came to close ranged combat. This was the one thing I had trouble with since I wasn’t a huge fan of close range combat to begin with, but I knew that it was something that could seriously help me out when fighting against high level Nen users, let alone Hisoka. 

The next was En, which was what he had explained to me earlier back when he was trying to convince me to let him stay over at my apartment. Back before he, you know, burned it to the ground. Bastard. 

If I remember right, he did explain about how En could be used to detect people at a certain radius around your body, but that it was also extremely tiring to maintain for a long period of time. 

And when I tried it out for the first time, he was right! It was insane how much energy it took to expand my aura even a few feet away from me, let alone keep it up for even ten minutes. That was something that we were going to have to work on as well. I had no idea how we were even going to be able to use it to track down the last two contestants.

Of course, he did say that there was the possibility that Helen Wakeman would come after us herself. And I wondered how big of an En radius she could create if she truly had been using Nen for decades and was very skilled in it. If anything, it seemed like she was far more likely to find us first than we were to find her! 

So with that in mind, I didn’t actually practice En as much as I spent brainpower trying to develop my next special ability. I was still working on the name, but the concept was that it would be like this spaceship that I could pilot on my own so that I could fly and keep up with these high-intensity battles without worrying about whether I’d fall down and die. That stunt that Hisoka pulled with me during the battle with Pierre and Andy still stuck in my mind rather sharply, after all, and I did not want to go through another near-death experience like that again.

I had half a mind to call it Galaxy Quest or something like that, since the concept did sort of resemble the kinds of stuff I liked to write and draw before this entire survival game fiasco went down. Slix Vigma and his twisted game might have ruined aliens for me temporarily, but I’d be damned if I let an incident even of this magnitude change what I was passionate about.

You know, as passionate about it as I could be if I wasn’t worrying about this ticking time bomb in my heart. 

So anyway, we were out patrolling the edge of Yorknew City, where Hisoka was checking to see if I had been practicing En properly. I tried to make it look like I was, but naturally, he could see right through me when my now 10-meter radius couldn’t even stay up for that long.

“Annie, you naughty girl. You weren’t practicing, were you? I am very disappointed!” 

He sure didn’t *sound* that disappointed to me. Hell, it sounded more like he was eager to think of some sort of kinky punishment for me when we got back. ...Which might have been worse, now that I think about it.

I looked down and sighed, bending down due to how tired I was from the strain. “What? No, Hisoka, come on...you said I was making more progress than most people! How could you say that, I was totally practicing…”

“Ah ah ah. No excuses from you, young lady. I’ll have to think of a punishment for you when we get back…”

Well, shit. I hated when I was right.  

Just then, I felt his aura envelop me, kind of like if he was using En. I shivered. “As if you’re not already punishing me right now! Are you going to do this the whole way, Hisoka? This is creepy…”

He didn’t respond for a few seconds, and when he did, his voice sounded notably less playful. “Annie…I don’t use En. ♠”

“What?” 

I looked up to see that indeed, his aura was where it usually was. So then, if that aura wasn’t his, and if it wasn’t mine, then who…?

Oh shit…

OH FUCKING SHIT!!

I instantly conjured up my armor and got behind him, but on full alert, ready to fight. “Hisoka! It’s…!”

“Helen Wakeman. So we finally meet. ♣”

I looked around wildly. Where was she? If I couldn’t see her even though her aura was touching us, then her En radius must have been gigantic! I was suddenly starting to feel the terror of what it was like to be up against someone with that much power. To think, there was someone like this in the game this whole time? I wouldn’t have stood even a fraction of a chance if I still couldn’t use Nen like I could now.

To my surprise, she (or at least a middle-aged woman I assumed to be her) stepped out from behind one of the smaller buildings. It wasn’t as far away as I thought, but it was certainly far enough that if we had kept going with my crappy En radius, it would never have detected that she was there at all.

She didn’t look scared at all. In fact, she looked like she was ready to teach us a lesson. “Hisoka...I know you’ve been training Annie. I thought it would be a good idea to sit out this survival game and let everyone weed themselves out before doing anything myself, but no longer. Now that there’s just the four of us left, I have to strike before she gets too much stronger.”

Hisoka shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose it is quite obvious by this point~. Although this is fascinating. This is the exact halfway point in the loop we’re taking around the city. Did you just take a lucky guess to ambush us here, or do you have an ability that lets you know things from a distance? After all, you *are* a Manipulator…”

Oh shit. Not another Manipulator. I still had terrible memories from dealing with Ellie.

A massive dust cloud kicked up around her. “I suppose you could say that. Not that it matters, either way...because you two are going to die!”

She launched the dust cloud, right towards us, and I was ready with my power armor, shutting it tight so that none of the dust could get in, but Hisoka wasn’t looking so hot. I could tell that he was using his Bungee Gum to try and deflect them, but it looked like some of the dust was able to slip through their gaps and tear into his skin.

Oh man. We were already off to a good start.

I hadn’t ever seen Hisoka have trouble with any Nen user from this competition until now, but I couldn’t afford to let that disturb me, or else Helen might actually kill us both. I wanted to help him, but with all that dust around, I couldn’t afford to release my power armor for even a second, or else the dust would get me too. And Hisoka was ripped; if he was that strong and the dust was enough to hurt him, how much more damage would it do to me?

“I have to admit I didn’t see this coming… ♠” he muttered.

I knew he was just trying to put up a brave face, but he couldn’t fool me this time. Although I admit that it was pretty odd how much blood he was losing and yet didn't seem to be affected by it at all. Still, though, it looked like it was now or never. 

I couldn't see Helen’s expression from here due to the dust cloud, but I could tell from her time of voice that she was feeling pretty smug. “It seems looks like I had nothing to worry about. At least from you, Hisoka. Now, as for you, Annie…”

I didn’t even bother to let her finish that sentence. I leapt in front of Hisoka and closed my eyes, doing my best to conjure up that ship that I always imagined in practice.

The moment I felt that floating sensation below my feet and Helen’s surprised yet somewhat muffled shouts from outside, I knew I had done it. “Yes!” I cheered, only to be greeting with the ship jerking about a tiny bit, so I quickly held my attention back to focusing on it.

By now, I think Hisoka realized what was going on, but I couldn’t bother turning around to check since all of my concentration was focused on maintaining the makeshift crappy spaceship. “Oh? Looks like all of your slacking during training wasn’t for nothing after all… ♣”

“Hey, I just saved your life. Now let me focus. I need to figure out how to beat her.”

The dust cloud predictably reared up to try and catch up to me, so I figured for now, I should probably try to outrun it and then crash the ship into Helen herself, since if she couldn’t focus, she wouldn’t be able to control the dust cloud any longer. Of course, it was a risky tactic since that would most likely cause the conjured ship to disappear, and it already took all of my energy just to create this one. But what else could I do? I was amazed that this Galaxy Quest thingy even worked in the first place!

That was, assuming I could even control the ship with any degree of competence. 

It kept veering wildly, because apparently what I thought of in my mind didn’t necessarily translate well to real life. Probably should have seen that coming, even with Slix Vigma’s Megacruiser being a thing.

If Helen was making any comments about how poor my control over the ship was, I couldn’t hear them, because by this point, the ship was getting higher and higher, and I was still trying to outrun the dust cloud. And of course, said cloud certainly wasn’t helping by fiercely attacking the ship whenever I accidentally ran into it.

“You look like you could use some help~.” 

Good lord, even when he was cut to pieces and bleeding, Hisoka still sounded cheery as ever. Did this guy even feel pain? Would certainly explain a few things.

“I’m working on it!” I replied through gritted teeth. “I just gotta crash this ship into her, and she won’t be able to control that damn dust cloud anymore!”

“I figured as much~. Perhaps if you let me out of here, I can use my Bungee Gum to make sure you don’t miss.”

“Are you kidding me!? Hisoka, you’ll be ripped to shreds! Besides, where the hell are you even going to attach your Bungee Gum anyway to help me out!? We’re in the CLOUDS now!”

“Slix Vigma’s Megacruiser is nearby, isn’t it?”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

Sure enough, I looked past the crazy dust cloud trying to kill us and saw what looked like a giant alien ship floating in the clouds. So that was where it was this whole time! We had always been teleported to the inside of it after every battle, but I never knew what it looked like on the outside. That being said, there was no mistaking it. The way the ship was built matched the style on the inside exactly.

“If you head over there and let me out, I’ll be able to launch us towards Helen, no problem. You’ve managed to make it this far. You can at least do that for me, can’t you?”

“Doesn’t look like I have a choice, now, do I?” I replied. 

I refocused on my position and aimed the ship towards the side of the Megacruiser at full speed, mentally urging the window in front to vanish so that Hisoka could get out. Sure enough, it did, and Hisoka leapt out and launched a huge web of Bungee Gum all around the ship and to the side of the Megacruiser that we just passed. I could feel the ship slow down as its momentum was absorbed by the giant magic rubber band.

“Bingo”, he said.

I would have asked how he could possibly see Helen from all the way up here, but the next thing I knew, we were going backwards and headed towards the ground at such high speeds, leaving the dust cloud in the dust...literally. 

“Annie. Prepare for impact in three...two...one…”

WHOOM!

I thought I heard a scream of agony as soon as we landed on the ground, but it was hard to tell when the whole ship was collapsing and I was being tossed around by the impact.

Seriously, it was a good thing I also had my power armor up and that *it* didn’t disappear, because Hisoka crashed right into me, and I don’t think I could have survived the impact without it. I would have said that we should have thought that through, but we didn’t have a lot of time or options.

“Owowowowowow...jeez…” With the last of my strength, I pushed Hisoka off of me (which really goes to show how useful Nen is when you consider the fact that he was like 200 pounds!!) and sat up. 

It was only now after everything had settled down that I realized how many cuts he had on him. Which of course were pretty bad, but all things considered, it could have been a lot worse. 

He then stood up and helped me get up, whistling at something behind me. “Over already? I expected a Nen user of her caliber to put up more of a challenge. ♠”

What? This lady nearly killed both of us within the first few seconds of the battle and Hisoka was complaining that it wasn’t enough of a challenge? Just how much of a masochist was he? Then again, I had to admit that if she was really that powerful, it was pretty surprising that she wasn’t able to get out of the way in time...

I turned around to see what he was possibly referring to...and immediately regretted it. There was Helen, of course...and even though it looks like the impact managed to graze only her leg, all the shrapnel from the impact got the rest of her, and she was in far worse shape than Hisoka by any means. Urgh, so much blood and gore...I could feel the urge to vomit rising up in me again.

But much to my surprise, I heard her cough and sputter. She was alive still, even after all that? I guess she was a Nen user who could enhance her defenses, after all, but still…!

“You two just got lucky, and you know it…” she rasped. “But make no mistake...neither of you will win this game...because...you’ll never...find her…”

At that moment, I realized why Hisoka didn’t bother trying to slit her throat or anything. She was already pretty much dead at that point, and yet for some reason, managed to fight against it that long just to tell us that. 

What was she talking about? We’ll never find ‘her’...? Some part of me could guess what she was talking about, but a bigger part desperately hoped it wasn’t true.

We then got warped to the ship as usual, and instead of paying attention to the video playback, I looked around at all of the other ten doors. Other than the one that showed the remains of Helen’s body, there were no signs of anyone else behind them. 

“How wonderful. And now...only three remain.” Slix Vigma flew back down on his floating platform, still cold hearted and calculating as ever.

I raised my hand this time, finally. “Really? I call bunk. Where’s this third contestant you keep talking about? There’s nobody else behind any of these doors besides me and Hisoka!”

“I was wondering when one of you would ask,” he replied, looking oddly delighted. “You see, one of the contestants who were killed previously had specifically requested me to keep this particular contestant’s identity a secret. Normally, I do not honor such requests in order to keep the game fair; however, it is a fact that without a few twists and turns, my audiences would not be satisfied. So due to the nature of the situation, I have decided to stop beaming this particular contestant up as early as the first battle. Of course, since I anaesthetised you when this game began, you have no memory of this development, either.”

I turned to Hisoka in the next room, and he didn’t say a thing. If he knew something about this mystery contestant, he obviously wasn’t telling me.

“So...what now? You want us to find who this mystery contestant is, and film us when we do? Is that it?”

“Precisely. It’ll be fascinating to see whether this changes the course of the game or not. But remember, only five of your weeks remain, so if you don’t all want to die, you should get moving.”

His four eyes glowed rather sinisterly, and the yellow hue reminded me uncomfortably of Hisoka’s. “See you next time, Annie. Or not. Guess we’ll just have to find out, won't we?”

**To be continued...**


	8. Cruel To Be Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throughout the whole game, Annie noticed that the identity of one contestant was never revealed. And now said invisible contestant remains. Nevertheless, she and Hisoka continue on their search. But the truth of who this final contestant is may be more than Annie can bear...

One contestant left, besides me and Hisoka. And for whatever reason, their identity was being kept a secret on purpose.

_‘You’ll never find her…’_

I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I wasn’t going to like what I was going to find out.

But it’s not like I could do anything about it, could I? I mean, the other nine contestants had already died. Even if two of them weren’t because of us, the others were all either thanks to Hisoka or a combination of our efforts. And when I really thought about it…

It was terrifying just how accepting I was of all this.

I mean, it was one thing to do this just to survive. ‘Better me than them’, after all. But when I stopped to think about it, they were all people trying to live their lives too, right? Sure, they were all Nen users, those lucky 1 in 100 people that I only recently discovered I was a part of this whole time, after 25 YEARS OF MY LIFE. But other than that, they were just like me.

No, not just that.

I was a loner loser just trying to get by and hopefully one day be lucky if I could even get my book series finished and printed, much less given any recognition at all. Did other people care if I had died suddenly one day? Maybe Selena, maybe my fans online, maybe a few nice customers at The Salted Tea and Plushie World who thought I was at least a bit of a cool person, but for the most part, no. My parents were dead, I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I certainly didn’t have anything in the way of extended family who even cared. What did it matter if I died in this survival game?

But these people, who have all been killed...I didn’t know them, but from the looks of things, they had it a lot better than me. Maybe they had families who cared about them. Maybe they had parents to look out for them. Maybe a lot of people looked up to them as teachers; like, actual Nen teachers and not ones that nobody asked for like Hisoka.

Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t have time to mull over things like these until now. Otherwise, I might have lost my nerve along the way; particularly in the last few battles, where I was actually able to help Hisoka instead of him protecting me the whole time. Heck, in that battle with Helen, he would have been screwed over if it weren’t for me!

Still, in some cases, it might be too soon to think about those people, and in other cases, it might have been far too late. I wouldn’t know. All I knew was that there was only one contestant left; one whose identity was kept a secret, and when I was speculating over what that reason might be, I kept coming to these scary conclusions that made me think of things like these, and—

I then felt a familiar hand with long fingernails grasp at my ear. “Annie. ♥”

Oh frack, that’s right. We couldn’t just lie around today and do nothing. I quickly sat up. “Aaah, right, right! We were supposed to patrol the city for that last contestant, weren’t we? I didn’t forget, I didn’t forget!”

Hisoka laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t get how we can tell which one is the last contestant if there are god knows how many Nen users there are in this city and only one of them is actually in this survival game…”

“Ah. About that. ♣”

He then pulled something out of his pocket and showed me what looked like a small piece of metal in his hand. I took a closer look at it, and could faintly make out patterns on it that seemed similar to the ones in the Megacruiser.

“Is that…?”

“Yes, that is from Slix Vigma’s ship. He gave it to me, and he says that it should light up and vibrate when we place it within the aura of the contestant. I would say I am quite surprised at how he can design something that can distinguish between the auras of individual humans, but given how he’s from outer space… ♣”

I gave him a look that was somewhere between amused and annoyed. “That kind of sounds like something I would say. But hey, if it really does work, it’s better than nothing.”

“Indeed. Besides, you still need to work on your En. After all that time you slacked off on it to work on your Galaxy Quest ability…”

“You keep conveniently forgetting how it saved your life in that last fight,” I said.

But of course, he was just joking. Of course he was.

\-------------------------

We had been patrolling this stupid city for two weeks and we still couldn’t find that contestant. Of course, we found many Nen users, and of course we had to dodge people who were questioning what a creepy clown-like serial killer was doing, roaming the streets along with a more normal-looking average girl. I was getting better at maintaining my En radius for longer and longer periods of time, but so far, none of them turned out to be the right one.

I was starting to get frustrated. Hah. Me, frustrated over the fact that we couldn’t find that one person we needed to kill. Why was I so looking forward to killing someone? Even if it was so I could live, there was still the undeniable fact that even if we did off them, there was still that upcoming final battle…

Me vs. Hisoka.

Urgh. I was not looking forward to that. I knew better than anyone else just how powerful he was, and how even if his abilities by themselves didn’t seem that impressive compared to what was possible with Nen, his attitude and the way he used them made him the last person you ever wanted to face off against in a fight. I knew I promised him that I would fight him with all my might when it came down to it, but I guess a part of me was terrified that I’d wimp out, and I knew that if I wimped out, that would be an even worse position to be in because then he’d…

Argh, no. I couldn’t think about how terrifying things could get. There really was no way out of this situation! Plus, there was the whole matter of that bomb in my heart, so…

“Annie...you’re not distracting yourself again, are you?”

I groaned. “I know, Hisoka, I know! But it’s been TWO WEEKS, and still no sign of them! And if another two weeks go by and we still can’t find them by then, WE ALL DIE!!”

“Ah, yes. I was thinking that if we were going this long without finding them, then maybe we’re not using the right approach. ♠ We assumed that they’d be in the city like the rest, but what Helen said about how ‘we’d never find her’...well, she did ambush us when we were patrolling *around* the city. I wonder what would happen if we moved our search over there…”

I hung my head. “But that makes no sense! I’d been using En to check all around the city back when we were looking for Helen! How could I miss…?”

Then I remembered. My radius was a lot smaller and more unreliable compared to now. “Ooooooh.”

“Bingo. Now that you’re better at it, we should try again to see if we can turn up something different. There is also the possibility that she placed that person there after the fact.”

That possibility, if true, supported my suspicions even more. And that was not a good thing.

But what choice did I have? I sighed. “Well, we might as well check it out.”

\------------------

Over the next two days, we retraced our steps all the way back to where Helen ambushed us, and we charted a few logical paths behind where she might try to hide a contestant. My first thought was ‘an underground bunker’ a lot like the one that Hisoka had, but I had to wonder if there were really more places like that.

Turned out there were, so Hisoka led me to the ones he knew of that were the closest by. All while I tried using En to detect if there was anybody down there. In those cases, I didn’t even need to worry about keeping it up for long periods of time. All I needed to focus on was making said radius as wide as possible so we could eliminate their hiding spots.

Right when I was super tired and was ready to call it quits for the day, when I least expected it, we hit paydirt. Or at least Hisoka did.

“There’s someone in here,” he said, kneeling down on the ground and placing a hand on it, with no apparent entrance anywhere to be found.

My jaw dropped. “What?”

Not believing it, I tried expanding my radius again. Still nothing. “How do you even know? I’m pushing my En radius as far as it’ll go and there’s nobody down there, I swear!”

“I have a theory…” he muttered.

But not low enough so that I couldn’t hear him. “What? What theory?”

“Whoever is hiding down there probably knew that one of us would try and use En to find them. So naturally, they built their underground hideaway so far down that even you couldn’t expand it to reach that far down. Of course, they didn’t count on me and my senses.”

Suddenly I could feel a really creepy aura coming off of him, and I knew that his bloodlust was getting incredibly strong. Even if I could protect myself from its intense effects, it was still something I could never get used to.

Then as if to prove his point, he pushed a random rock aside to reveal a set of stairs leading down to a hole in the ground.

I gulped. Whenever he got like that, it was like he had the senses of a bloodhound, if not better. This was serious business.

I only took a few steps towards the entrance before getting nervous than I already was. “Wait...wh—what if there are any traps down there? Like, Nen traps placed by the user, or by Helen herself when she hid them?”

Hisoka stopped for a moment, and then stared at the entrance for a good long while. “...I don’t feel the presence of any traps or Nen curses. We should be good to go.”

He may say that, and given his current state, he most likely wasn’t lying either, but that being said...I still felt really shaky. I wanted to see what was down there, but I couldn’t help but feel like I might regret it.

“All the same…” I quickly walked up right in front of him and conjured up my armor. “If there’s something really bad down there, this should at least protect you from the worst of it.”

“Oh? How thoughtful of you…”

To be honest, a part of me hoped that he would actually get caught in whatever trap there would be down there, if only so that I wouldn’t have to deal with fighting him later on after this was all over. But I didn’t want to make him suspicious now. The last thing I wanted was to give him a reason to try and kill me early. Gosh knows how he was even more perceptive now than he usually was.

Which just made this whole venture scarier than before.

I took a deep breath, and steeled myself. “Alright, this is it. Let’s go.”

Every step down the incredibly long, spiraling staircase descending into relative darkness felt like an eternity, and I could even hear our footsteps. I tried to be as quiet as I could, but I wasn’t sure if that was the right approach or if storming in guns ablazing so to speak would be better. If whoever down there was ready for me this whole time, then maybe being careful was the worst thing to do.

We reached the end of the spiral stairs to a cold, steel door.

“This is it…”

Hisoka’s sudden declaration breaking the silence caused me to jump a little. I was already on edge enough as it was.

I placed a hand over my chest, trying to calm myself down. “Jeez, Hisoka, don’t scare me like that…”

I might have said that, but of course, the most tense part was to come. Seeing who exactly was behind the door. I gripped the the doorknob in my hand and steeled myself for what was to come. “All right, we’re going in. On three, jump after me and stick close.”

Hisoka nodded, and sharpened his fingernails. “Ready whenever you are. ♥”

“One...two...three!”

I twisted the doorknob open and leapt through, ready to stab anyone who was there with my knife, and Hisoka followed suit, yet I stopped as soon as I landed my jump.

Nobody was here. It looked like a normal room with a bed and a table and a sink and a shower and basically everything else our hideaway had, and yet, everything had a lighter, more pastel-y color to them. In fact, I could even see crayons scattered about here and there.

Oh no.

Hisoka turned his attention to the back of the bed behind the headboard, and I froze. It couldn't be...could it…?

He went on ahead of me, striding forward confidently, and I followed suit. I had to see what was behind that board.

Then he knelt down, and said, with a surprisingly genuine-looking smile on his face, “So this is where you were hiding...Lily Wakeman! ♣”

I turned to look.

Oh no.

This was way worse than any curse or trap I could think of.

The piece of metal in Hisoka’s hand...it was glowing bright yellow.

The final contestant was a little girl.

She must have been Helen’s daughter!

My mind froze.

How?

How could this happen?

How could Slix Vigma have chosen a kid this young? She couldn’t have been more than seven years old, at most!

I could only stare, frozen in horror, as the little girl looked up from her hiding place at Hisoka. Oh god, I could tell she was going to scream…I couldn’t look, I just knew Hisoka was going to kill her…

“Today’s your lucky day, isn’t it, Lily? It’s your birthday~.”

What?

I guess she must have been as surprised as I was, because she just stared at him like he was nuts.

“Today’s not my birthday…” she said, looking at him oddly.

“Aaah, oh dear! My mistake! I’m sorry, I got the days mixed up. Silly me~. But you know what? Even if it’s not your birthday, there are still 364 days where we can instead celebrate your un-birthday!” He then pulled out a party popper from his pockets, and even I had no idea they were there. “A veeeeeery merry unbirthday, to you~!”

This was...really weird. I never expected Hisoka to be the type to be able to talk to little kids this well.

Even little Lily was laughing and singing along. Huh. Wow, he totally defused that situation like a pro. But a part of me still wondered...why? What was his real plan?

“And now, for your unbirthday present! Uncle Hisoka is going to bring you back to your mommy!”

Oh no.

Lily didn’t seem to get it, though. “What do you mean? My mommy said for me to stay here and don’t open the door for anyone until she gets back...”

“Exactly! See, she had to move away all of a sudden and couldn’t bring you along because of work. But now that things are settled down, she asked me and Aunt Annie here to help bring you back~.”  


I could only stare at him, completely dumbfounded, at how this plan could possibly work since Helen was, well, dead. Actually, no. I had a feeling that he had something worse planned and he was delaying it on purpose just to mess with me.

“Really? Can we go now? Pleeeeaaaasse?” she asked, looking really excited. Poor girl. She must have been super lonely, waiting for her mom to come back for the past two weeks.

“Of course! But you know, your mommy is in a place far away now, and we’ll need to ride on a spaceship to get there~. And it’ll take a long time. But I know a way to see your mommy right away.”

“Really? Like what? A teleporter??” Man, this kid was super hyped. Somehow, it only made things worse…

“No no no. You know how when you fall asleep during a car ride, and you wake up, you’re already there? It’s like that! Except it's a spaceship!”

“Ooooooh.” She nodded. “So where is it?”

“Aunt Annie will go outside and get it.” He then turned to me with that same fakey yet genuine looking smile on his face. “Won’t you?”

I just stared at him, still dumbfounded, but did at least catch the tone in his voice that he was being serious. “Ah...yes! I’ll have it here in a minute!”

I ran out of the underground hideaway and tried to calm myself down, focusing super hard on conjuring up that spaceship. Come on, come on…

Thankfully, I was able to do so, and it even looked a little better compared to the last time I tried it. I poked my head back down there and called, “Hey Lily! The spaceship’s ready!”

“Yaaaaaay!”

The kid ran from the hideaway and into the spaceship as fast as she could, and I could hear her running all around it touching everything.

Then Hisoka followed soon after her, walking far more leisurely, and said, “So do you like it?”

“Yeah, yeah!” She then tried to lay her head down and go to sleep, but obviously not having much success when she was that amped up already, and pouted. “Awww, this isn’t working! I wanna fall asleep faster!”

“Well, Uncle Hisoka can help you out with that! Just keep your eyes closed, okay? No peeking~.”

“Okie-dokey!”

By now, I was paying more attention to Hisoka since whatever charade this was had been going on for this long, and I honestly wondered how he’d actually be able to...

He hit her in the head. And knocked her out!

“WHAT THE HELL!?” I shouted, completely losing it and not really caring if I was cursing in front of a little kid, particularly if she was already unconscious. “Hisoka, why did you…!?”

“You saw it, didn’t you, Annie?” he replied, his voice reverting back to normal. “She’s the last contestant. ♠”

He pulled out that piece of metal, and upon holding it close to her, it glowed once again.

I didn’t have anything to say. This was it. What we discovered only moments ago. But to me, it seemed as though Hisoka already knew this little girl was the final contestant all along, and had this entire skit planned out in advance.

“...Yeah...apparently, for whatever twisted reason Slix Vigma had, she is.” I nodded, swallowing. “But I don’t get it...why didn’t you just kill her the moment you found her? You could have done it, rather than drag her on this charade for this long…”

“Oh, it’s pretty simple, actually. You see, Annie, she’s the only Nen user in this competition who hasn’t developed a Hatsu yet. The only principles she’s mastered so far are Ten and Zetsu. In fact, her Zetsu in particular was so good that it even fooled you~.”

I winced, not needing to be reminded of that fact.

He continued. “But you see, she would be far too easy for me to kill. And yes, while I could just do so and get it over with...well, I thought ahead to our upcoming battle. And I realized that out of all of the contestants we were up against, you’ve never killed a single one of them of your own accord. It was either me who did the killing, or as a result of one of my plans. So! Here’s what’s going to happen.”

I didn’t like where this was going.

He stood up and pulled the knife out of my pocket, putting it in my hand. “You’ll be the one to kill her. ♦”

What did he say?

I jumped back. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! You expect me to kill a little kid!?”

“Don’t tell me even little Lily is too much of a match for you, now. You do want to win this survival game, don’t you?” He glared at me.

“Well, yeah, but this is a KID we’re talking about!”

“And you realize if you refuse to kill her over the next two weeks, all three of us are going to die anyway?”

“Yeah, but…”

I just stared at Lily’s body just lying there on the floor of the ship. My hands were shaking. This was nuts. This...this couldn’t be…

“If you’re worried about the police finding you guilty or some nonsense like that, then that’s why I had you conjure up this ship. All you have to do is stab her, and then after her blood runs dry, you make it disappear along with the evidence! And even if you can’t manage that, all conjured objects disappear after 24 hours anyway, and this is in the middle of nowhere, so you have plenty of time.”

I just stared at him, speechless. “...How can you say something like that? How can you talk about her like that??”

“I’m honestly more surprised that you care about her that much, even though you just met. And after everything I did to help make it easy for you to kill her, you still are having trouble… ♠” He sighed, and then glared at me. “Are you going to side with her over me, when I’ve been with you this whole time, defending you from everyone who was trying to kill you? ♠ In fact, I guarantee you that if she were even a little older, she would be after you as fiercely as everyone else.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Was he seriously trying to convince me to kill this kid, and even make me feel bad over not doing it? I knew he was already a serial killer, an outright sociopath, and even an asshole at times, but...I didn’t think it would ever come to something like this...

I shook my head, and held back my tears as best as I could. “...Please tell me this whole thing is a joke. You’re just messing with me, aren’t you…? Like you always are…?”

Unfortunately, he was dead serious. Right at the one moment when I honestly wished with all my heart that he wasn’t.

“How am I supposed to know that you can kill me when you can’t even kill her?”

That did it.

“YOU MONSTER!” Instead of aiming my knife at Lily, I instead aimed it squarely for Hisoka.

Of course, despite how fast I was going, he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me just in time, with a frighteningly pleased look on his face. “I knew you had it in you…! ♥”

That pissed me off even more than before. “FUCK YOU!! Just die!! I’ll kill you! I really mean it this time!!”

“Ah, but as much as I’d relish taking you on here and now, I’m afraid I’ll have to have you postpone our fight a little longer, where we can do so at a more appropriate venue. But of course, in order to do that…”

He twisted my arm and pointed the knife back at Lily. “We’ll need to have her out of the way first. Rules of the game, you know.”

I was practically hyperventilating. I wanted more than anything else to break free of his grasp, drop the knife, anything, but I still couldn’t break free. Not even focusing all of my aura power into my arm at 100% power was enough to do so. The most it could do was just slow him down, and it was only a matter of time before…

“No…! Oh god, please no…!”

At the last possible second, I knew it was hopeless. I ran out of energy already, having been tired out earlier today, and after conjuring up that spaceship, my power armor and putting everything I had into my arm and still having no effect…

As well as knowing everything that Hisoka said was true…

I had to accept the inevitable. As much as I didn’t want to be the one to do it.

I was so blinded by tears that I don’t know if I could even see properly at this point. All I could feel was my aura power losing its grasp, Hisoka driving my arm forward at full force, and the knife plunging right into the back of Lily’s neck, with the blood splattering all over me at close range.

And then I don’t remember what happened after that. All I know is that I was screaming and trying to get the blood off of my hands, and desperately hoping that this long nightmare would come to an end.

**To be continued...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me quite some time after I had this chapter already written that I wondered what would happen if I had the final contestant be someone who Annie had more of a personal investment in, but at the same time, it wouldn't have made sense to have it be a family member if she has no living family members left, and having it be Selena would have been a bit of an ass pull. Besides, the ending here is intense enough!!


	9. The Final Countdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie was traumatized over the death of the last contestant, but there’s very little time left to mourn. It’s just her and Hisoka now, and the three month time limit before the bombs explode in their hearts is coming up fast. The two of them do their best to prepare for their final battle...and enjoy the last moments they have together.

 

This was it.

It was just me and Hisoka left in this godforsaken death game.

Of course, for what felt like a long time, I couldn’t even process that fact. I was still tripping over how I had been forced to kill a little kid with my own hands. How was I supposed to deal with something like that? 

Sometimes I’d briefly wonder if it would have been a lot worse if Hisoka wasn’t around to kill everyone else before her. If I had to kill them all myself.

The answer? Most likely? I’d probably be even farther gone than I already was. I don’t think I’d be quite at Hisoka’s level, but I could tell, even by this one kill alone, how he probably got started to where he was today.

He might have been somewhat loony by default, but if this experience was anything to go by, you had to go insane just to deal with the shock of something so monumental and horrible. And Slix Vigma was forcing us all to kill each other like this? For entertainment?

It was certainly possible he got quite the load of entertainment from me, just like he predicted. All I knew was that I was totally out of it when the three of us were beamed up to the Megacruiser once more, and Lily’s body disappeared right in front of my eyes to be teleported to that chamber where I could never see anybody this whole time. Not that I’d be able to even if she was there, since she was so short.

The one thing I could barely process, though, was the conversation that Hisoka and Slix Vigma were having.

“Well, well. Annie Neptunia and Hisoka Morow. Down to the last two of you, I see. Well then. Did either of you have any plans for how your final confrontation would occur?”

“I wouldn’t try speaking to Annie at the moment, since she is...rather busy,” replied Hisoka, as if commenting on the weather. “However, I still would like to say that I do have great plans. ♣ See, I was hoping that we could use these last two weeks to give her the chance to get as strong as she possibly can, so that when we do have our final battle, it will be worth it~.”

“Hmm…” I don’t know what Slix Vigma was doing at that moment, but judging by the pause, he was probably nodding. “Am I to presume you also have the location planned out?”

“Ah yes. About that. Slix Vigma, you did say that this Megacruiser was a place where beings from across the galaxy fight each other in death matches?”

“Yes I did. Would you like to rent out one of our stadiums to use for your final confrontation? Because that is a most excellent idea. One I wish I thought of for my earlier survival games.”

Hisoka laughed. “You read my mind! This should be a spectacle that everyone should see. Let’s have the match be exactly one day from when the time bombs are scheduled to go off. ♦ That way, if the match lasts longer than I expect, we won’t be in too much danger from that.”

“Sounds like a plan. If you want further details, we can be sure to arrange them as the day draws closer.”

“I look forward to it. ♦”

\------------------------

It had already been an entire day since that conversation, and only now was I finally starting to recover from the shock. In some ways, I was surprised that Hisoka didn't say anything at all about it. Maybe he was waiting for me to deal with it this whole time.

Just to make sure, I finally sat up in the bed.

“Hisoka…”

“Hmm?” 

Good. It looks like I got his attention now. I turned around to face him and asked. “Was it true…? That Lily, her mom, and her dad were all contestants in this game?”

“Aaaah. So you were wondering if that was my justification for urging you to kill her, weren't you?”

I nodded. “You could say that. Every time I think about it, I realize that for them, it must have been way worse. How brutal do you have to be to force an entire family to choose between which one of them will make it out of this game alive?”

Hisoka closed his eyes. “I distinctly remember a question like that being asked to everyone who wanted to take the Hunter Exam this year. The correct answer is...nothing, because there is no right answer. They ask it to prepare you for the types of no-win scenarios you’d inevitably face as a professional Hunter.”

I scoffed. “And I’m not even a Hunter! Though I guess her mom and dad were. But I don't think it made it any less painful.”

“From our perspective—or at least from mine, anyway—it's easy for us to say that they should all die. Ideally at the same time. And it's also easy to claim that there would be no point even if Lily was the last one standing, since she wouldn't have her parents around anymore and would have to live with being an orphan for the rest of her life.” 

Orphan. Hah. I guess I’d technically be considered one if it weren't for the fact that I was already 25. Now, as for Hisoka...well, he never talked about himself much, if at all, so I wouldn’t know.

He shrugged. “But who can say? Me, I’ve stopped asking those questions a long time ago. Makes things easier that way.”

Of course.

Then he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Well, now...we only have two weeks until our final confrontation aboard the Megacruiser. I would say think hard about what you’re going to do until then, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. But what I can do is at least give you one final hint on how you can make your Nen abilities more powerful.”

I blinked and looked up at him, suddenly a bit nervous at his announcement, but also intrigued. “Like, make them better than they already are?”

“You could say that, although adjusting an existing ability takes quite a bit of time, so you might be better off creating one last new one. Anyway, you know how the bombs Slix Vigma placed in our hearts are a Nen ability of his own?”

My eyes widened. “Wait, it is? Alien robots can use Nen too?”

“Well, Nen utilizes life energy, so it stands to reason that if something is alive, it has the potential to use Nen, even if only a few individuals can actually do so. Anyway, the reason why he was able to have his bombs stick to us for this long and explode under so many different scenarios in case we try to escape, tell somebody, or fight against him...well, I don’t claim to know the true capabilities of Slix Vigma himself and how much he surpasses us humans by, but I would still guess that he was able to make them that powerful via the usage of covenants and conditions.”

“The what and what?”

“With them, you give your Nen abilities more versatility and power by placing restrictions on them, and/or penalties to yourself if you break them. Like let’s say you really wanted to track down certain groups of people, or even a specific someone. Your Nen ability that you develop to do so will be far more effective on those people you specify and far less effective on anyone else. This does make your ability more situational, to be sure, since you’ll only be able to use it super well on some people and far less effectively on others, or maybe if you try using it on others, it’ll, say, take a liter of your blood. ♠ Extreme, to be sure, but you have to decide what restrictions and punishments there are and whether the boost in power you get will be worth it.”

I thought back to when I tried to break my grasp free of Hisoka’s when I was desperately trying not to stab Lily, and I remembered how agonizing it was that even using all of my advanced Nen techniques, I still couldn’t do it. Was he giving me a hint as to how I could possibly get strong enough to turn that around by the time of our final battle? Wouldn’t that put him at a disadvantage, since he only bothered using Bungee Gum and Texture Surprise and didn’t seem to worry about developing any other abilities to, say, try and kill me specifically?

Wait. This was Hisoka we were talking about. Mr. “If you don’t get strong enough to give me a satisfying fight, I’ll do all sorts of horrible things to you when I kill you.” If anything, he was so strong that he had to keep his original two abilities as a handicap when fighting against me. And if yesterday showed us anything, it was that despite how much progress I had made over the past two and a half months, he was still objectively stronger than me. 

I had to do whatever I could to turn that around in the next two weeks. And if I couldn’t...well, I might as well enjoy what little time I had left here. 

I hung my head for a bit. “...I’ll think about it. Thanks for the tips, Hisoka.”

“But of course. ♥ It’s the least I can do in order for us to have a fair fight, after all.”

Fair. Hah. That's a laugh.

\----------------------------

Only two weeks left until Judgment Day. Either I lose to Hisoka and die, or I win and I get to live on. On one hand, a part of me wondered if there was even any point to living. I was still a loner loser, and even if I did now have Nen powers, I kind of lost everything in that fire no thanks to him. On the other hand...I really, really didn’t want to die. Especially not by being brutally killed in any of the various ways I’ve seen Hisoka murder everyone else in this game. 

I walked quite a distance away from the hideout so that Hisoka couldn’t see me anymore. At first I was a little worried about attacks from other contestants, but then I realized, wait. There *were* no other contestants anymore. Heck, logically speaking, I probably should get as far away as I could from him now!

But, well...a big part of me still wanted to stay with him since he stuck by me this whole time. And of course, the rational part of me reminded me how I didn’t have an apartment anymore, and even if I could get one now, Hisoka could still easily track me down regardless.

I found the remains of a few dilapidated buildings and figured this would be a great spot to practice. So then I pulled out my knife, concentrated my aura to envelop it too, and then started going to town, whaling on the buildings over and over again.

_ Kill Hisoka. _

_ You have to kill him. _

_ If you don’t, you’ll die. _

That’s what I kept telling myself with each swing. I wasn’t sure if this was how I was supposed to add a condition to my attacks or special abilities, but Hisoka did say that those were all the hints he was going to give me. 

_ I don’t want to kill anyone else. _

_ Let him be the last one. _

_ After him, I’ll never kill again. _

Oh...this wasn’t good. I was starting to lose my nerve. But I couldn’t give up. I had to keep going. Let this knife be the last resort.

I had to be strong. I had to keep going. Get stronger...don’t stop...get as good as you can be so that you can give him a battle to remember. 

\---------------------

Every day I ran out there to practice my knife strikes and to improve my reflexes, as well as devise strategies for how I could possibly counter every one of Hisoka’s attacks. I tried using all of my observations of our battles and all the ways he killed everyone else to help predict how he’d do against me, and how to counteract them, but of course, it was easier said than done. What with knowing how much more experience he had compared to me, as well as sheer ability, and then there was the matter of his mind. He could come up with so many different strategies that even if you could predict one, chances were that he could switch to something completely different. Or at least, that was the feeling I got.

And every night, I’d try not to think about how every day was getting closer and closer to the dreaded fight. Although of course, Hisoka himself was only getting more excited. I could feel it in his aura.

Oddly enough, even though his excitement was creeping me out, I found myself struck with this feeling of longing. Like the time I was ever going to be able to see him was about to come to an end. Probably because it was, wasn’t it? Either he was going to kill me, or I was going to kill him. 

At first, I thought I was just being nuts. After all, he was a serial killer and a horrible person, who didn’t care about anyone or anything, and even made me kill a little girl. I had every reason to want him to die. I had every reason *to* kill him in order to protect people from being hurt by him again.

And yet…something inside me still felt so sad.

I tried my best to hide it from him. I really did. And for a while, I thought I was doing all right. I continued training as usual, pushing myself to my limits, and about a week before, they had decided that all we had to do was walk to a specified location outside the hideaway when we were ready to be beamed up aboard the Megacruiser for the final battle.

But soon enough, the night before the fated day came. I was about to get to bed and took a look around at my stuff re-packed neatly in little boxes; boxes that I’d get to take along with me if I won, and that Hisoka would burn if he won. I couldn’t help but feel morose at the fact that I’d never get to write or draw anything again or finish my stories if I lost tomorrow. But at the same time, I felt somewhat resigned. Certainly more so for that than…

“Annie.”

I turned to the entrance with a start. There was Hisoka, standing right there, looking bemused as usual, yet somewhat more concerned. Or maybe I was just imagining it.

“H—hey…” I gulped and looked down at the floor, desperately trying to hide the intense longing that welled up in my stomach just now.

“We probably shouldn’t see each other tomorrow morning. Because the next time we see each other, it’ll be in a fight to the death. ♠ Don’t worry, I’ve already decided on an alternate location for Slix Vigma to beam me up. It won’t overlap with yours at all. And besides, if I win tomorrow, I’ll finally get to sleep in my own bed at last~.” He chuckled.

I continued to stare at the ground, visibly shaking.

“Oh, come now, are you nervous? Well, I suppose you would be. I guess me standing around here isn’t helping you, though, not in the least bit—”

“HISOKA, YOU IDIOT!” I screamed.

I ran toward him and hugged him, burying my face in his chest, as tears started streaming down my face. “Are you crazy!? Tonight is the last time I’ll ever get to see you before we have to kill each other! You might be crazy enough to just leave me after staying with me for three whole freaking months and be all right as if nothing ever happened, but do you think I’d be? No! You don’t just stay with a person for that long, saving their life over and over again, helping them get good at this awesome new power they apparently had inside them all along, and then just ditch them and expect them to be okay with it! I...I just...I just can’t…”

Oh jeez. It was like a dam had burst. I guess that was what I got for trying to act tough and play it cool all this time. I didn’t expect him to care or anything, but dang it, I had to at least give him a piece of my mind before I let him go like this.

I expected him to say something cold or cruel in response, but for the longest time, he didn’t even say anything at all. I wasn’t even sure what sort of expression was on his face since I was wallowing in my own despair for so long, but when I finally did get a chance to blow my nose with a tissue and look up, it almost looked as though he were quietly shocked.

“...” As he held a hand to his head, he looked as though he kept wanting to say something, but couldn’t find the right words at all. This was a first.

“Sorry...I guess I held it in for too long...” I wiped my tears. “I just figured, since we weren’t going to fight until tomorrow...well, I know what you said about then. But, uh...I guess if it’s alright with you, I’d like to ask if you could do one last thing for me before I fall asleep…”

He continued to stare at me, but with an unreadable expression on his face. “Yes, Annie...?”

“...Can you stay with me one more time? I...I want to remember this. I don’t want you to forget me. I mean, I’m worried that if you’re not here with me, I’ll be too scared to fall asleep. And then you wouldn’t want me to be sleep deprived for our battle tomorrow, would you?”

“...No...I suppose I wouldn’t.”

I smiled, finally feeling a little better. “Thanks. I...I guess I wanted to have one last happy moment. ...With you.”

\----------------------

And what a moment it was.

I was pretty tired after it was over, and maybe I might be feeling it in the morning, but I didn’t care. Regardless of the result tomorrow, it was nice that he did me as hard as he could.

“So? Was it good for you?”

I gave him a thumbs-up. “Totally worth it.”

“Good. I’m glad. ♥”

As I was feeling like I was about to drift off to sleep, I thought I could see him put a hand to his forehead and say, “Aaaah...I’m losing it. This isn’t like me… ♠”

I grasped his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Hey. Hisoka. What you did just now was a good thing. And that’s really special, coming from someone like you.”

He didn’t respond for a while, as if still grappling with the sensation of being complimented. “Ha ha ha...I guess so. I do have issues, after all.”

“Hey. Issues or not, you should be proud! It really means so much to me...that you’d do this…”

I yawned, finally feeling tired. “And I promise that I’ll...do my best...and fight to the very end...just...for you.”

Right before I went under, I could see a genuine smile appear on his face. “...Thank you, Annie.” 

\-----------------------------

Well, this was it. Judgment Day. And just like Hisoka said he would, he was nowhere to be found the moment I woke up. 

I got up and moved about like a dead person. Of course I would have preferred to stay in bed and sleep in, but then there was the matter of that bomb in my heart exploding tomorrow if I tried such a stunt like that. So this was the only shot I had of Slix Vigma finally removing it himself. 

Why was I even bothering to brush my teeth, anyway? Because this was the last time I might ever get to do so? I guess if I’d be appearing on Live Intergalactic TV, I might as well. 

Guess this meant I was ready to die. Or more likely, ready to fight until the very end. That’s what Hisoka would have wanted, anyway.

I stepped out of the hideaway to see the sunrise, and for the first time, I actually stood there and took in the view. Funny. When you’re not worrying about where your next paycheck is coming from, it really makes it easier to just stop and smell the roses, so to speak. Just looking at it all somehow made me feel better. Like regardless of what happens, this view would always be here for everyone to see.

I made my way to the beam-up point, marked with an X on the rock thanks to Hisoka; deliberately making each step as slow as I could so I could enjoy these moments one last time. As soon as the rock was within my grasp, I stopped and turned to look up at the sky, barely being able to make out the silhouette of the Megacruiser, but knowing for sure it was there, ready and waiting.

Well, this was it. As soon as I stepped up on that rock over the X mark, there would be no backing out. I took a deep breath.

“Well, God…” I whispered. “Whoever wins this battle...well, I’ll leave it up to you. But please, make it be for the better.”

After what felt like the longest time, I stepped on the X. And then the entire world warped in front of me, one last time.

**To be continued...**


	10. Fright to the Finish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the fated battle between Annie and Hisoka has finally arrived. One of them will die. The other will get to live on and become Hunter of Hunters. Regardless of what awaits them, they know one thing for sure. There's no turning back now.

 

“Greetings, beings around the galaxy, and welcome to the final match between Annie Neptunia and Hisoka Morow, here on our heart-stopping televised reality survival game, Hunter of Hunters! I am Slix Vigma, your host, bringing the event to you live, here on the Megacruiser.”

Even deep in the dark tunnel, with walls littered with odd alien designs and architecture that never failed to amaze me, I could hear Slix Vigma’s voice booming over the intercom, and then cheers (or at least what I assumed to be cheers) of the presumed alien audience outside. Come to think of it, this would be the very first time that me and Hisoka would actually be able to see aliens other than Slix Vigma.

And possibly the last, for one of us.

I tried to calm myself down, but I was shaking and feeling nervous. But of course, who wouldn’t be if they were walking to the fight that would determine whether they would live or die? Especially when all signs seemed to point towards the fact that Hisoka still had every advantage over me. Despite all my training, the fact of the matter was that I only had less than three months to really get good at Nen, whereas he had like almost two decades. There was just no way I could bridge that gap.

Unless what he said about conditional abilities was true, that is. If my Last Resort could somehow make up for it…

Well, there was no time to dwell over it. I had to be at my A game here. If I messed up, even for a fraction of a second, I could lose my life. There was no room for hesitation.

Then the platform I was standing on started to move, startling me. I didn’t even know I was standing on a platform to begin with. But I quickly adjusted myself and looked forward to where it was going, towards the light at the end of the tunnel that was getting bigger and bigger.

I shielded my eyes as the light came into view. Well, this was it. No turning back now.

“And here arrives our first contestant...Annie Neptunia!”

I was greeted by what felt like loud cheering as the platform transported me into the extremely large and wide stadium, way bigger than I ever expected one to be for a one on one match. I could see why I had to get on a moving platform; if I was expected to walk, it would take forever to get to the center of the place where I could actually see my opponent.

As I looked around, I realized that the stadium was not only the size of like one mile long, but that there looked to be a thick layer of glass covering the top part of the entire perimeter, where I could see the crowds of beings I’ve never seen before. It occurred to me that a long time ago, I probably would have found this setup the coolest, most inspirational thing ever, and would have gotten an idea to write a story based around it, but, well, when you’re the one walking to a deathmatch...that sort of priority falls by the wayside.

One thing was for sure. This place was designed to accommodate epic battles with insane energy attacks, alien beings who were much larger than usual, and I guess Nen abilities like my Galaxy Quest which required a lot of room to really do well in. At least Hisoka and Slix Vigma were nice enough to give us this central stadium (or at least I assumed this was the central stadium of the ship) to battle in.

“As the underdog of this competition, Annie didn’t even start off being able to use Nen at all and was expected to be among the first to lose. But throughout these past three months, she not only became able to use Nen, but master all of its basic principles and many of its advanced ones. We will be looking forward to see how far she’s come.”

Ugh. Slix Vigma. I know he had that ‘stoic emotionless robot’ thing going on, but could he narrate his commentary with any less energy? Regardless, it seemed as though that didn’t matter since the audience became fired up even more.

Finally, the platform stopped, and I looked towards the video screens near the top, where I could see Slix Vigma’s face as well as what might or might not have been video cameras around the stadium. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down once again. If anything, I had to at least take a page from Hisoka’s book and look good for the cameras. Or at least attempt to.

Speaking of which, where was Hisoka? I was already here in the stadium, but not him. Wasn’t he the one who was looking forward to fighting me this whole time?

Right then, Slix Vigma gave me my answer. “And now, here comes our final contestant...Hisoka Morow!”

I felt him before I even saw him. His unmistakable bloodlust...it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it did back when I let him in my apartment (back when I HAD an apartment) now that I could use Nen, but it still felt as unsettling as ever.

Then I saw him, riding on the platform at the other end of the stadium, stretching his arms and looking as confident as ever.

“As the contestant with the highest kill ratio by quite a large margin who has shown how adaptable he is in all of his battles, he is the one we are keeping a close eye on. And as a part of his tactics, he has even chosen to keep Annie Neptunia alive this whole time so he could fight her at the very end, when she is at her strongest. Will his plan work, giving him and us all the biggest battle we have ever seen in any game of Hunter of Hunters so far? We shall find out!”

Yeah, great. Way to remind me just how stacked the odds are against me in this fight.

I took another deep breath, trying to keep myself composed, but the closer Hisoka got, the more nervous I couldn’t help feeling. Well, here he was. The man who might as well be the devil himself. Of course, it was just a figure of speech, but I couldn’t help thinking that way when there was a very real possibility of me dying horribly from this fight.

The platform stopped, and he stepped off of it to come face to face with me. I gulped. What was I supposed to say to him? We had been seeing each other for the past three months—maybe way more than I would have liked, originally—but it was so hard to face down this guy who I had known for that long in a fight to the death.

Then I remembered all the horrible things he did; killing all those people, including the ones I knew at my apartment, burning down said apartment complex (well, I didn’t see that one myself, but…), blabbing about our private business to Claudius that one time, possibly screwing me over in regards to developing my unique Nen abilities on purpose, forcing me to lie to and stab a 7-year-old girl in the back of her neck, and of course, being a selfish, monstrous psychopath who lived only for his own pleasures without caring about anyone else.

I clenched my fists and glared at him. Holy hell, what was I thinking, living with a lunatic like him all this time. Just because he had a nice body didn’t mean jack when I thought about everything he did. What did Claudius say…? This man had to die…?

“Oooooh… ♦” Hisoka looked more aroused than ready for battle, which I expected to be rattled by, but for some reason, it just seemed like it suited him, especially given how much he was looking forward to this battle.

What the hell was this guy thinking, getting a boner right before a fight to the death like this? (Not that I even knew if he had a boner or not in the first place, but…) Well, fine. If it meant I could kill him more easily, than so be it.

Of course, right when I thought that, I suddenly felt the biggest blast of murderous intent from him that I ever felt, and a scary expression grew on his face. Oh god...he was really going to enjoy this to the extreme, wasn’t he? I had never seen him like this in any of the fights before.

I shook my head and continued to glare at him, not wanting to look intimidated. I couldn’t afford to be psyched out by his antics. Especially not now. I stood up more confidently and flared up my aura in response, which only seemed to excite him more.

“The contestants have exactly 24 hours from now to finish the match. They may begin on my count! Three...two...one…”

This was it.

“Fight!”

In that very instant, I conjured up my armor as fast as I could, and just in time, too. Hisoka made the first move leaping at me ready to chop my head off.

Thankfully, I prepared for the possibility of him trying something like this at the very start, so I leapt out of the way and used the the armor to increase my speed. With its help, I was just barely able to stay ahead of him and avoid all of his punches. I knew enough of his fighting style to know that he could stick his Bungee Gum to me if he even so much as touched me, so I knew I had to avoid all of his close range attacks. Beyond, of course, I had to use Gyo on my eyes to see if he was going to try sticking a strand to me from long range, but even so, there was usually a subtle indication on his part when he would attempt to do so.

The crowd roared as we flitted across the battlefield, with the floor of the stadium being smashed to pieces every time I dodged one of Hisoka’s attacks. I got the feeling that Slix Vigma was commenting on how I haven’t even managed to attack at all, much less get a hit on Hisoka, but I was too focused on the battle at the moment. My life was on the line here, after all.

Then Hisoka leapt up and aimed to smash me from above, but instead of blocking with my armor, I instead opted to conjure up knives to do so. There, at least the Bungee Gum wouldn’t hit me and I could try to injure him at the same time.

His arms slammed into the sharp ends of the knives, drawing blood; and he then stepped back, finally stopping his assault. I jumped back and kept a close eye on him.

“Oh, what’s this? Annie has finally managed to land a hit on Hisoka! However, this battle is just getting started!”

Slix Vigma was right. Sure, Hisoka might have been bleeding, but from the look on Hisoka’s face, it didn’t look like those knives hurt him at all.

“Aaah, so you did…” Hisoka smiled. “I didn’t think you’d develop an ability so similar to Jenna’s, too. ♣ Well, you do realize that unless there’s something else you’re hiding from me, that little trick of yours won’t work the second time. ♦”

“...” I didn’t respond. He was right. I wouldn’t be able to pull off something like that on him twice. So for my next move…

I decided to leap right for him and aim for his heart in order to end this, once and for all.

Right at the last second, he blocked me with some playings cards he had to have pulled out of his pockets, because I swore that he didn’t have them at all until now.

“Good…~”

He used his cards to yank the knives out of my hands, sending them to the side and disappearing. This was the exact opposite of good. This was terrible.

I tried to get out of the way, but he then grabbed my arms and shoved me to the ground. Oh no…

I used Gyo on my eyes to see that he had indeed left a strand of Bungee Gum attached to my arms with that move. Not good…!

“Stand up~.”

He yanked me up, and I could feel myself starting to be dragged toward him. Thankfully I had thought of what to do if this happened, but like the last trick, I had the feeling that it would only work just once.

I ejected the part of the suit covering my arm that had the strand of Bungee Gum attached to it, cutting my momentum short and making him completely whiff with that punch from his other hand he had planned to slug right at me. The part that was being dragged along with the Bungee Gum ended up overshooting and going around to hit him on the back of his head, just like I had hoped.

Of course, even that wasn’t close to killing him, not by a long shot. I quickly tried to re-conjure up the missing piece to my armor, but unfortunately, I think he saw it.

“Ooh~. Turning your defense into an offense, hm? That is indeed a fascinating strategy to try and counter my Bungee Gum. ♣ Unfortunately for you, it leaves you exposed, if only for a fraction of a second. Which is all the time I need. ♥”

I gulped. I really hoped he was bluffing, but given the incredible speed and power he was displaying in this battle, I knew that was just wishful thinking on my part. If only I had figured out how to create a second layer of armor, then maybe I might have stood a better chance.

“That being said, I will commend you for being able to last this long against me and not get injured at all. ♣ No one else I’ve fought against has ever been able to do so. However, all this means is that this requires a different approach… ♦”

Uh-oh. This also didn’t sound good. I had to think of something before he could.

I rushed at him again, but this time faked where I was aiming my conjured knives before then going down and aiming to stab him in the legs—or at least, tried to before he then swung out with a kick to my stomach.

The impact sent me flying pretty high, but not high enough to hit the ceiling, and he pulled me back in with the Bungee Gum he had already attached.

Oh no. If I released the part of my armor covering my stomach, yeah, that might send it flying towards him like a projectile, but that was exactly what he was expecting. I could tell that with his other arm, he was aiming a card to send flying at my stomach when I did that.

So I had no choice but to take the hit, and get another strand of Bungee Gum attached to me at the same time; this time to my chest. This was getting worse by the second.

“Aw, Annie, I’m shocked! After everything we’ve been though, did any of our time together mean nothing to you?”

That was my line, you bastard! At least, that was what I wanted to say, except he kept dragging me in and punching me, attaching even more Bungee Gum strands to more parts of my armor like some feedback loop I couldn’t get out of. Even though I managed to conjure up a few knives to stab into him and even got in a few lucky hits when he wasn’t guarding with his cards, he still didn’t seem to be slowing down.

Of course I knew it was all a part of his strategy to get sentimental now, because he didn’t sound like he meant it at all. If anything, he made it sound more ironic and spiteful than anything, making me rage even harder...and of course fall right into his traps.

Before I knew it, he had already managed to apply Bungee Gum to every part of my suit, tie me up, and had me hanging there in midair thanks to strands he had attached to the ceiling and floor without me noticing.

“Well, well. I guess you really still miss me that much, don’t you? ♥”

He bopped me on the nose, now taking it easy since I couldn’t move at all. I struggled as much as I could, but to no avail.

“Of course, you now realize that the only way to get out of this predicament is to release all of your armor at once? Ah, but of course you also know that the moment you do so, I’ll be ready and waiting. ♦”

He winked, and I really couldn’t help but get the feeling that this was getting super creepy. Of course, I then had another worry. Didn’t he say that he’d give me a fate worse than death or something if I held back while killing him? Well, I did my best, didn’t I…?

Then he made several sudden slashes at my armor with his cards, and I couldn’t help but scream a little in surprise. No, they didn’t hurt, but I could still feel the ferocity behind them.

“Ah, I finally got something out of you. ♣” Trollish as ever. His smile then disappeared as he looked over my armor. “Hm, though you really did a nice job making this armor unbreakable, especially against me…”

I tried making another knife out of thin air drop on him from behind, but he merely caught it it midair since it was too slow. Urgh, if only I could throw those things myself...

Then it looked like he had the most brilliant of evil schemes. “I wonder...if there might be other ways I can...persuade you to take this off.”

“Oh, shit…!” Immediately, I regretted saying anything; not that it would have made a difference or anything.

“Ah! And that’s the first thing I was able to get you to say today! ♣ But really now. How is this any different from what you usually like?”

“You know damn well WHY, you asshole!” I shouted back, struggling to break free. Even though I tried conjuring up several knives to cut through the Bungee Gum binding me, as usual, none of them worked.

I thought over several possible scenarios for how our fight would go, but I didn’t think he’d actually try to tie me up and then touch me inappropriately. Hah, fat choice I had here. Either let him fondle me on live TV, or release my armor and then die an excruciating, painful death here. Well, as only as excruciating as I was able to get my aura to nerf his attacks.

Wait…

That was a possibility, wasn’t it?

Yeah, I wouldn’t have my armor anymore, but then again, Nen users typically didn’t need this kind of armor, did they?  I only made it because I really didn’t want to take any damage whatsoever if I could avoid it since back before I became a Nen user, any hit from these guys could have resulted in instant death, as that experience with Ellie taught me.

But maybe, if I were to make the pieces of this armor explode and scatter everywhere...yeah, it would leave me open to an attack, but only for a brief moment before I was able to re-conjure up new armor. The main thing here is that I wouldn’t die right away since I now could use Nen. Yeah, I’d lose a bit of blood, but at least I wouldn’t die.

That was it. Hisoka might have been expecting me to have trouble with this, but I had to show him that just because I played into his hands all this time didn’t mean that I was going to be predictable any longer. Particularly not now.

“So this is what you want from me, isn’t it…?” I spat, not planning to let him actually touch me even once. “Well then, COME AND GET IT!”

I used all of my spite at him to release every part of my armor in his direction, sending it shooting like a thousand tiny projectiles aimed to stab him with the force of a thousand needles. Or at least that was how I pictured it.

As I predicted, he was able to use his Bungee Gum to yank all of the pieces away from view so that he could rush forward and stab me with his cards. I charged forward, which went against every fiber of my being at this point, but I also knew that he’d never expect me to make such a bold move. It was the best shot I had.

Sure enough, he looked surprised as I charged ahead and conjured up a knife to knock out the card in his hand. With my other hand, I aimed for his heart, but missed and hit his arm.

He leapt back in surprise, staring at the knife sticking out of his right arm as well as the blood dripping from it, but just like all of those other attacks, he still didn’t flinch. Although I thought I saw him starting to slow down a little, though I couldn’t be sure. What I was sure of was the fact that he just looked at it and chuckled, and I used the break in the action to re-form my armor.

“Well, well...I thought I could scare you out of that one, but you actually have guts! I feel like we could end this a lot faster than I thought. ♦ Very well, then…” He licked his lips. “Show me what you’ve got!”

For once, I actually smirked. The first time I actually was having fun during this whole fight to the death, which was quite an accomplishment. “That’s my line too, asshole!”

I charged right at him and intentionally aimed for his face, knowing he would try to block it and attach another Bungee Gum to my arm, only for me to blast that piece back at him. He then tried to slash at my exposed hand with his cards, and sure, I was grazed a little, but by this point, I was able to read his movements so that I wouldn’t get totally damaged.

_This was it._

_We have to end this._

_Just kill Hisoka, and then…_

_Everything will be over!_

At this point, I just went nuts, abandoning my old plan of keeping it safe. Now that I could deal with his Bungee Gum at close range by strategically blasting any chunks of my armor that he tried sticking it to, and now that he had so many more cuts and gashes that even if he couldn’t seem to feel pain, he must surely have been slowing down from the blood loss, it was now or never.

Ouch—grazed a little there. No problem, I got him on the wrist. Now he couldn’t aim his cards properly. This was it. I could do this. My main goal was to be able to deliver a final blow to him that would end this once and for all.

Right when I thought I had him, though, he did something unexpected. He tripped me, and then was able to get a clean hit on my exposed shoulder, sending me flying across the stadium.

“AAAAGH!” I clutched my shoulder as I rolled along the ground, trying to stop my momentum. As I came to a stop, I realized that the wound was way deeper than all of my others. This one looked like it might be lethal.

“No…” I whispered. I was so close. I thought I had him that time!

If I didn’t get up soon, he was going to get over here and kill me. I tried to stagger back up to my feet, but before I knew it, he had launched a strand of Bungee Gum on my other shoulder, which I couldn’t dodge because I was so injured. It almost made me wish I wasn’t using Gyo on my eyes in the first place. How terrifying was it to see an attack coming and not being able to do anything about it?

“Oh shit…!”

Next thing I knew, he had used it to yank on that section of my armor, propelling him to where I was, and slammed me back down to the ground again.

“Ah, fuck…! Why…? I was so close…!” I closed my eyes and held my hands over my head. This was it. I was dead, wasn’t I?

But to my surprise, he didn’t attack. “Ohhh...tell me more, Annie…”

Never mind, that was just a psyche-out. He kicked me again.

“I…” I coughed out more blood.

Wait a minute...he told me about this, didn’t he? How he liked to fight people at their peak, have the biggest battle of all with them, and then when they thought they were about to win, totally beat them down and hear them say things like ‘How could this be…?’ as he tore their legs out from under them.

That was it, wasn’t it? It was the only option I had. I just had to hope that he wasn’t going to figure out that was my plan and go against the script, or else I was doomed.

So I didn’t move at all. Instead, I whimpered, “I could have beaten you…! How, Hisoka…?”

“Yes...good girl~.”

All right, he was drawing closer. Keep it up.

“Aaaah, don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” I held my hands over my face and cried. “I don’t want to die! I’m begging you!”

“That’s what I like to hear. ♥”

This sucked to have to resort to this, but at least I had the advantage of actually feeling that way halfway, so it wasn’t a total lie. Meaning the chances were good that Hisoka wasn’t catching onto my plan. In fact, he looked like he was totally enjoying it for real.

He easily yanked a piece of my armor from my legs and then slashed me there, drawing a lot more blood.

“AAGH!” That son of a bitch. Of course, I planned for the possibility he would cripple me like this, but now it just made it a lot harder to pull off my plan.

Harder, but not impossible. I could do this.

“You really want me to spare your life? After I made you as strong as you could ever be? ♠ Annie…”

I couldn’t really see his face since I was stuck on the ground, and he was towering over me, but I was willing to bet he was more ecstatic than I had ever seen him so far, and that made me even more scared to actually look up. But I forced myself to. I had to, in order for this plan to work.

“...Why did you think I made you learn so much in less than three months? Because you had the most potential, and you have served your purpose wonderfully. I bet you were thinking maybe you actually had a chance to beat me! Sad to say...that won’t happen. Because now you have reached your limit. ♠ And therefore...you must die.”

Did this asshole just admit that he was messing with my Nen training on purpose this whole time, for this very moment?

“Goodbye~.”

That was it. I didn’t care whether he was going to kill me or not. I had to give him a piece of my mind one last time.

Right when he was about to strike, I put all the strength in my legs and arms as I could and launched myself up, holding my knife and swinging it at him with all the strength that I could.

_Kill Hisoka…_

_He has to die!_

\------------------------------

A vast silence fell over the battlefield.

Nothing from me, nothing from Hisoka, not even from Slix Vigma himself. Or any one of the aliens watching from the stands. It was as if everything had frozen in time.

I don’t think I even realized what had actually happened until I felt something warm running over my hands. Wait. I knew this feeling.

It was blood, wasn’t it? I expected it to be my blood, but...

“.............Well then. ♠”

I was still alive? Even despite all my injuries?

“Ha ha...so this was how you felt about me...this whole time… ♣”

What…? No way…

I had driven my blade up in Hisoka’s stomach. And...it didn’t look like he was moving. I half expected him to just get up and yank the blade out, but he was breathing so slowly that it was getting hard to accept what just happened.

I gulped. “...Hisoka…?”

“...This is a surprise. I never expected...I would lose...like this…”

I still stayed there, completely frozen. This couldn’t be happening...could it? I tried to find something to say to him, anything, but nothing would come. On one hand, I was relieved to find that I wasn’t dead, but on the other hand, I never expected to actually be able to kill Hisoka. The serial killer who survived this long and never lost a fight in his entire life.

I came into this fight completely prepared to die. And yet…

“Are...are you speechless…? Heh heh...I thought you might be…”

I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening.

“....Still...good job, Annie. ♥ As a Nen user...you pass…”

He then gave me a thumbs-up before then leaning to the side and falling off of the blade that I realized I had my hands latched onto this whole time.

Oh no.  

I fell to my knees, not wanting to believe what had just happened.

“And we have our winner! By the skin of her teeth...Annie Neptunia! What a shocking conclusion to the most exciting battle we have ever had. And thus, we shall now award her with the coveted title of...Hunter of Hunters!”

I could barely hear Slix Vigma’s announcement, nor the cheers (or even boos) of the crowd around us. All I could focus on was the fact that I had just killed another person. And not just a person that someone else forced me to kill. Someone that I actually did kill on my own accord, without anyone’s help.

Hisoka...how...why…?

I might have made it, against all odds, and survived this crazy death game...but I didn’t feel like a hero at all. Or even a survivor, for that matter.

Hisoka might have been a serial killer, a terrible person, and a total asshole, but...it was so hard to think that someone like him could actually die right before my eyes. By my own hands, no less. Never again would I get to hear him crack one of his trollish jokes, nor teach me any more about Nen, or even be there for me to talk to, even if he wasn’t necessarily listening…

This asshole stuck with me for these past three months, helping me get better all this time, and now...now he’s dead. I’d never get the chance to talk to him again...I…

I was all alone in the world again. I lost everything. First my mom and dad, then I lost my old home, then my apartment and friends in Yorknew City, and now...him.

“Hisoka...don’t leave me...please…”

But he’d never come back.

**To be continued...**


	11. The Emperor of Everlasting Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unthinkable has happened. Annie has won. However, Slix Vigma decides to renege on his promise to let her go and instead decides to keep her aboard his ship as a prisoner for the rest of her life. But all is not lost as it turns out that Hisoka has miraculously survived, and together, the two of them aim for one last stand against the robot alien himself.

 

“Hisoka...no...please, no…”

I clutched at his body, as if that would bring him back, even though I knew it wouldn’t. Even from here, I could feel that his heart was no longer beating. I didn’t care that we were both bleeding like crazy; I didn’t want to move from that spot if I could help it.

Just then, a familiar voice distracted me. “As promised, here. I shall remove my bombs from your hearts.”

I heard Slix Vigma snap his fingers, and I thought I felt something dissipate from us both. Now that I could use Nen, I was aware the bombs were there the whole time, so it felt really nice that a weight had finally been lifted off of my shoulders.

This was it. This was what I had been fighting for this whole time; why I had been pushing myself to my limits every day these past three months. I expected to feel a lot more ecstatic than this. So why…?

By this point, I was able to see Slix Vigma actually float down to eye level, yet I still couldn’t look at him directly, with my eyes still focused on Hisoka. I felt dead inside. 

“...Hey. Slix Vigma.”

“Yes, Annie…?”

“What exactly do you do with the bodies of everyone who died in this game?” I held onto Hisoka even more tightly, cursing myself for not realizing this sooner or bothering to ask. And here I thought I had learned my lesson with Lily…

“Oh? I merely study them, to discover the nature of their Nen powers. Also since your species is completely new to me, to find out more about you. Why do you ask?”

I looked up at him, glaring, as I pulled Hisoka’s body away from him. “...I won’t let you take him away. Not like everyone else.”

“Oh? Now this is quite fascinating, Annie. Hisoka was your final opponent in this game. He was by far the most powerful out of all the contestants. And you had been working all this time to be able to kill him. Despite that, the odds were vastly stacked against you, and Hisoka was far more likely to win, but against all odds, you beat him. And yet now...you feel sorrow over his death?”

I really wanted to punch that guy more than ever.

“It’s not something YOU would understand,” I growled through gritted teeth. “You weren’t the one who was stuck with him all the time for the last three months. And even if you were, somehow, I still doubt it.”

“...” For a while, Slix Vigma didn’t say anything. He just kept gazing at me with those cold, emotionless eyes of his. It was even harder to tell what he was feeling since he didn’t even have a mouth.

Finally, I decided to break the silence. “...Could...could you let us off the ship now? You said that you’d let us go after this game was over…”

“You know, Annie, while I was watching you during all of those battles, I noticed something...interesting. And not just you; a lot of the contestants, too. While yes, you acted as I would expect your self-preservation instincts to, there was also another odd thing you tried to do. Particularly with Lily Wakeman. You tried to spare her life.”

I glared again. “Yeah? So? She was a little kid. She couldn’t even use her Nen to fight! You had no business dragging her into this dumbass game.”

“But had Hisoka not intervened and forced you to kill her, would you truly have given up your own life for her’s?”

“...” For a while, I had to think about it, but when I did, I could only come to one conclusion. “...Maybe. At least she had a possible future. I don’t. Especially not now that Hisoka’s...” I sniffed. “...Gone…”

“...Hmm.” He continued to stare at me while at the same time looking as though he were trying to figure something out. “Such a thing is called…‘mercy,’ is it not? What a fascinating concept.”

I glared at him even harder. This guy had never known mercy in his life? But of course. If his idea of a game show was a free-for-all to the death, then of course he wouldn’t know.

Suddenly, chains materialized around my hands and legs, and I gasped. “What the hell...!?”

“Annie Neptunia! I have decided. As promised, I shall spare your life since you fought so hard and indeed won the title of Hunter of Hunters. However...I will also keep you aboard this ship and study this concept you call ‘mercy’.”

“Wait, WHAT…!?” I was outraged, and tried to get up. “What the hell!? You said you’d take us back home and leave us alone for good! Hisoka even asked that of you just to make sure that was what we were fighting for! How could you just break your promise like that!?”

“I never said I promised anything of the sort, did I?”

“I don’t care! Let us go, you asshole!!”

Suddenly, the chains became super heavy, and I fell down to the ground. “I also never said anything about you having a choice in the matter, either. You should know that when I go from planet to planet, I abduct the strongest warriors I find right away, and keep them here on this ship to fight in gladiatorial combat for the rest of their lives. I usually don’t bother to wait for the end of a game of Hunter of Hunters to choose from them. So you should be honored.”

“Honored, my ass! Fuck you, Slix Vigma! You should go straight to—!”

Before I even had the chance to finish my sentence, the scenery suddenly warped in front of me, and the next thing I knew…

“—hell…”

Slix Vigma wasn’t there anymore. I was suddenly in a dark, enclosed room, along with Hisoka’s body, as if we were trapped in a jail cell. The only light came from above, which filtered out from behind a grating covering a tall passageway that led to god knows where. Maybe it was a ventilation shaft, though I could never be sure with all this alien architecture. 

The bastard had teleported us here.

I hung my head. Great, just great. He totally reneged on his promise to let us go after this was over, and now I was trapped in a jail cell aboard an alien ship where I’d probably be experimented on, or forced to fight other alien warriors for the rest of my life. Not that I had an apartment in Yorknew City anymore, but it’s not like this was any better, was it…?

At least Hisoka was here with me. Even though he was...dead…

I held my face in my hands and cried again. If only Hisoka were still alive...this wouldn’t be so scary. Or so lonely. Or so heart-crushing. He’d be okay with something like this; in fact, he’d probably love it. Maybe he should have won that last fight instead.

Maybe it would have been better if I had died.

\--------------------------

I don’t remember how much time had passed. Maybe I fell asleep, maybe I didn’t. All I knew was that my mind was in a downward spiral, as I was convinced that this was going to be my life from now on. 

In a way, I even started wondering if it would be better. At least this way, I wouldn’t have to struggle on my own back in Yorknew City anymore. But then I remembered just how terrible living here would be, especially since my life was in Slix Vigma’s hands now, and if he wanted me gone, well, he could easily do that and there was nothing I could do about it.

And as for Hisoka’s body...it only then occurred to me that if I kept a body like that around, it would soon start to decay and smell bad. Maybe this was Slix Vigma’s way of punishing me. But more likely, it was all because I really couldn’t accept the fact that Hisoka was truly dead.

I sighed, and tried at least to pray for him and send him off with some sort of respect and dignity. He might have been a serial killer, a terrible person, and an asshole in general, but I also knew he could be so much more than that. It seemed fitting that he’d meet his end here, at the very least, with the one person who, despite everything, still cared enough to keep his body safe here.

Suddenly, I saw some steam rise from his body. Figuring it must have been a result of my tears, I rubbed my eyes and looked again. The stream was still there. And not only that, but it was getting thicker and stronger.

What.

The.

Heck…? 

No way. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be...it’s gotta just be his leftover Nen, right? Right…?

Then I heard him cough, and twitch.

No way…

He coughed and gasped for breath, and then...he opened his eyes.

“...Hello, Annie. ♥”

“HISOKAAAAAAA!” I screamed, hugging him as tight as I could. I could even hear his heartbeat now. This was unbelievable.

“My, my. You look especially happy to see me this time~.” For a guy who was apparently coming back to life being hugged so tightly (which probably hurt even more given the chain around my wrists), he sure didn’t seem to be affected by it too much. 

I didn’t even try to deny it. Not this time. Not after I was forced to kill him earlier. “Please tell me this isn’t a dream…I don’t want to wake up...please...”

It took me a while to even realize he was touching my butt. “Well, I can only speak for myself here, but you certainly feel real to me. So I would assume that this isn’t a dream for either of us.”

Finally, I let go of him, getting his hands off me. “...Well, I guess that’s enough to convince me. But still…”

I stepped back and pointed at him wildly. “How the hell did you come back to life?? I killed you...Slix Vigma said you died...he even removed the bombs from our hearts! And yet…!”

“Ah. That. ♥” He smiled. “While you were spending the last two weeks practicing those knife attacks of yours, I was busy developing a new technique for my Bungee Gum myself. It was a command to have it restart my heart and lungs only a few hours after I had died. Of course, it would only work if I wasn’t brain dead, which thankfully, I wasn’t~.” 

I just gaped and continued to point at him. “Wait...a command to do all that...isn’t that a—?”

“Manipulator ability? Yes. Yes it is. Considering how Manipulation is at the complete opposite end of Transmutation, I did have my doubts on whether it would even work at all when the time came. But of course, given my immense skills, it ended up working after all.”

He looked at the chain around my wrists, and then up at the grate covering us, as well as the room we were in. “...I assume we are still on the Megacruiser, aren’t we?”

“Most likely,” I replied bitterly. “Slix Vigma broke his promise. Yeah, he removed the bombs from our hearts, but instead of warping us back home, he decided to lock me up aboard this ship permanently! He says it’s because I showed ‘mercy’ or something against Lily, and he wants to see how a human who won his Hunter of Hunters game would do against all the alien warriors here! And maybe he might experiment on me or something!”

Surprisingly enough, Hisoka didn’t seem the least bit shocked. “...I thought so…”

“Wait, what? What do you mean, you thought so?”

“Why do you think I asked him all of those questions when just Helen and Lily were left?” He smiled. “I couldn’t help but get the feeling that someone like him might try and pull something like this. Well, even if he didn’t, that would be no problem of all, but since he has, well… ♠”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, wait…” I held my hands out in front of me. “So you developed this ‘come back from death’ ability on the off chance that Slix Vigma would break his promise like this at the last minute?”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t quite say that...namely, the main reason I developed this ability at all was so I could come back and fight you again in the future, when you were sure to become much stronger. If you could accomplish this much in three months, who knows how powerful you’d become in a year! ♦”

I couldn’t believe this. He never intended to die from this game at all, even on the off chance that he was killed!

“But now, it looks like Slix Vigma has us both trapped here...although that’s curious as to why he dumped me in here with you when I had died.”

I looked down to the ground, feeling kind of self-conscious. “I...I didn’t want that bastard to do anything to your body, like burn it up, or whatever...I still wanted you to be here with me, even if…” My voice trailed off.

“Ah, I see. ♥” I couldn’t bear to look at the incredibly smug grin he was sure to have on his face.

Which of course meant that when he wrapped an arm around me and kissed me on the cheek, I reacted with complete shock, and froze.

“What the hell, Hisoka…?” I was honestly wasn’t sure whether to slap him or not this time. I mean, here I was, all broken up over the fact that he was dead, so to have his usual antics around again…

“I knew you couldn’t resist me~.” He bopped me on the nose. Ow. His long fingernails made it hurt that much more unintentionally.

Then he looked back up at the grate. “Although if there’s one more thing I could do to win you over, I suppose we’ll have to find a way off this ship before Slix Vigma decides to fly away to another planet. What do you say?”

I nodded. “Sounds great, but...we’re both still pretty injured. And only a few hours doesn’t really help out with that...unless…”

Before I could even get the words out, he had already wrapped up both of our wounds in Bungee Gum, and already I was feeling less pained. In fact, I was feeling a lot better than usual.

I blinked as I was able to get to my feet without wobbling or falling down. “Huh. Is it me, or did your Bungee Gum’s healing powers get a lot better from when I last remember…?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just you, and has nothing to do with how Nen gets stronger after death or anything like that,” he replied as a matter of fact.

“NEN GETS STRONGER AFTER YOU DIE??” I blurted, but then covered my mouth promptly.

Sure enough, he put up a finger over my mouth. “Shh. I can explain later. Right now, we need to get out of here. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with Slix Vigma, but if we do…well, at least you’ll be here to back me up, won’t you?”

I shivered. “Y—yeah...hopefully it won’t come to that.”

\--------------------------

After he covered up both our wounds with Texture Surprise so that we looked good as new, we managed to bust through the grate and climb up the long tunnel above us, but we really had no idea where to go. And we couldn’t use my Galaxy Quest to speed up the process, because we didn’t want to make too much of a racket and get Slix Vigma’s attention.

That being said, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that Hisoka was making more noise than necessary, what with the way he was kicking down doors since we couldn’t open them normally. Then again, a part of me suspected that maybe he did actually want to fight Slix Vigma and that this was part of his plan all along. But I was too scared to bring up the possibility. After all, I wanted to get off of this ship as soon as possible, so I didn’t want to jinx it.

Along the way, we stumbled upon a room where we saw some of the alien warriors that Slix Vigma had abducted from other planets. There was this one big hulking orange muscle-y guy with a mace arm named Technorg who actually talked to us and wondered how we were going to break out of here when we were still in chains (or at least I was; Hisoka still wasn’t). I was way too nervous to talk to him, so I’m glad Hisoka picked up the slack and convinced him to at least not dismiss our escape attempt out of hand entirely.

That being said, what Technorg brought up was a good point. I had no idea how to remove the chains around my arms, and it didn’t look like Hisoka could break them either, so one way or another, we had to go through the central control room to at least figure out how to remove them. Son of a… He planned this all along, didn’t he?

Sure enough, instead of finding a way out, we ended up right at the control room at the center of it all, where the alien robot was waiting for us, sitting in front of a control console with loads of hologram screens lining the front of the room from top to bottom.

“Hello, Annie and Hisoka.” He didn’t even turn around to see us.

I was too shocked to say anything, much less chew Hisoka out for betraying me like this, so all I could do was stare at him in disbelief with daggers in my eyes as best as I could.

“Yo~.” Hisoka waved. “Aren’t either of you going to ask me anything?”

But of course Slix Vigma was able to answer before I could. “I’ll admit I was quite astonished when I saw that you had come back from the dead, Hisoka. For a moment, I thought I had made a mistake letting Annie hold onto your body. But then I remembered that you two would have had to come here in order to remove the restraints around her arms, and of course, I was correct. And yet, unlike Annie, you don’t seem to be concerned at all...”

“Of course I’m not.” Hisoka smirked. “The whole reason I’m here at all is so that I can battle you. ♦”

My jaw dropped. “Wait, what!? Hisoka, weren’t you keeping me alive so that you could fight ME this whole time? When did this happen?”

“Oh, Annie. I’m sorry to say, but you didn’t really think that you could become strong enough to be a match for me in only three months, did you? Even for one with such immense potential as yourself. I’ll admit that if Slix Vigma weren’t around, then my eyes would have been on you and you alone. But of course, Slix Vigma is far more worthy of my time. I can just feel it.”

I glared at him and clenched my fists. Why did I save his sorry ass, again…?

“Fascinating…” The alien robot blinked his four eyes. “If it is as you say, then all you could have done was ask me for a battle much earlier in the game. I would have been more than happy to oblige.”

“Ah ah ah. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten the example you’ve made of Scott Wakeman right when this game started.” Hisoka waved his finger. “It just wouldn't do if you could have just detonated the bomb inside my heart the moment the fight began, now would it? ♠”

“I see...Fair enough.”

The whole time, I kept my eyes on them, with my pulse racing. By this point, though, I had to ask. “But if all you wanted was to fight Slix Vigma, then why am I here with you!?” I shouted, a little more strongly than I intended. Then again, I was the one who wanted to get off this ship, not confront this crazy grand master! What was wrong with this guy?

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re the reason I have to challenge him.”

I was about to argue that someone like him really didn’t need a reason to challenge anyone, let alone alien robots, but I figured that was beside the point.

Then he turned back to said alien robot. “Anyway, let me guess. If we want to get her restraints off, not to mention get off this ship at all, then the only way to do so is to kill you. Right…?”

Slix Vigma didn’t say anything for the longest time, and even I looked at Hisoka like he was nuts.

“...Indeed. In fact, I myself am the control console for this ship.”

“I see… ♣” Hisoka licked his lips and got in a battle stance. “...Then how about we get right down to business? To the death. ♦”

“You forget that you are playing by my rules now. I am the control console, as you have guessed. However, even though I can no longer place any bombs in your hearts anymore due to the limitations I have set on it, I still have a few tricks up my sleeves…”

The next thing I knew, the alien robot grabbed my arm in one hand and Hisoka’s in another, and my hand restraints reconfigured themselves. Instead of being bound around both of my arms, they changed form in order to bind my left arm with Hisoka’s right.

“What the…!?” I shouted.

“This is my second ability, Chain of Fate. I have to touch both of you for it to work, but as a result, now your lives are linked via these shackles. If one of you were to die, the other will too.”

I was outraged. “What the HELL!? Why did you—!?”

“Hisoka, you might have said you wanted to challenge me. However, I would personally prefer to fight you both at the same time. Your teamwork was what helped you two out of many tricky situations during my survival game, after all. And since you’re playing by my rules...that means that you’ll have to fight me with both of your lives on the line.”

Hisoka didn’t look too pleased either, but he was doing a much better job keeping his cool than I was. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you’re doing this just to try and kill me faster… ♠”

“Well, I am Slix Vigma. I do have a tight ship to run. So in my case, the sooner I can end this fight, the better. It’s a shame, having to kill Annie too, especially when I had such great plans for her. However, attempting to escape is a punishable offense, one that you should both pay dearly for.”

His eyes grew dark, and I could feel the biggest wave of murderous intent emanating from him I had ever felt in my life. It was even stronger than Hisoka’s, and every fiber of my being was telling me to run away. But of course, given how I was literally chained to Hisoka now, such a thing was out of the question.

“I admit I hadn’t expected this… ♠” said Hisoka. “But I won’t let this stop me. The two of us worked together for three major battles already. We can do this one more time. ♦”

At least he wasn’t outright dissing me, like I was expecting him to. But whether he was lying to save face or he really did believe in me, at least to that extent, I couldn’t afford to let my guard down more than ever. I had to help him out, one last time.

I nodded and gave him the most reassuring smile I could, under the circumstances. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”

“Very well then.” Slix Vigma glared.

He then conjured up a massive UFO-like spaceship from out of nowhere to surround his entire body. It looked even more impressive than mine, and it even had what looked like laser cannons decked out all around it from every direction. “Show me what you’ve got!”

I barely managed to conjure Galaxy Quest just in time to protect us from the flurry of laser blasts that he launched right at us. We would have been toast right away! That being said, I didn’t know how long my ship would last, so I tried to steer it out of the way.

“What the hell!?” I shouted. “Why does he get to use LASERS on his ship, but I don’t!?”

“I would assume he is a Specialist who can use every category of Nen equally well, ♠” said Hisoka. 

  
“THAT IS SO NOT FAIR!!”

Honestly, I should have been more surprised that he came up with the exact same Nen ability that I did. But there were more important matters to deal with. 

Like that wall we were about to crash into!

Or at least, I expected for us to crash into it, but instead, a hole opened up in it and just kept going. In fact, all of the walls of the ship seemed to be changing…

“Like I said. I control this Megacruiser, and everything on it,” he said as the walls then suddenly clamped shut around us.

“Ah, shit!” I realized what was about to happen.

We were sitting ducks now as a hundred lasers were pointed at us both.

Suddenly, Hisoka grabbed my shoulders and whispered into my ear. “Annie. On my signal, drop the ship.”

“What…?” I wasn’t sure whether I was more surprised by his sudden action or his suggestion in the first place. “What are you talking about? The moment I drop the ship, we’re gonna be…!”

“Don’t worry. I’m going to show Slix Vigma just how strong my Bungee Gum has gotten now. Wouldn’t you like to know, too?”

Wait. He couldn’t mean…?

I felt him cast a ton of strands around the ship, tying us both up, and I realized what he was planning to do. I nodded. “...Right. Just tell me when.”

We then were hit by a ton of lasers, and it took everything I could just to keep the ship from breaking apart under the weight of their power.

“...Now~.”

I dropped the ship and conjured a knife pointed right at Slix Vigma’s. At that very moment, we were propelled like a rocket thanks to Bungee Gum, but with even more strength than I ever felt before. We were going so fast that I thought we were going to splatter against the ship, knife or not, so I fortified my existing armor to the maximum possible extent.

Much to my surprise, we broke through the ship’s outer layer. Or at least Hisoka did, with his playing cards. I thought Slix Vigma’s ship was supposed to be unbreakable like mine, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

Unfortunately, even though we cracked the outer layer, we barely missed the actual alien robot, and slammed into the ceiling. Thankfully, Hisoka was able to help us land swiftly and face Slix Vigma once again.

“Well?” He smiled. “How do you like me now?”

The robot looked unphased. “I see. You were able to use the fact that Nen gets stronger after death, since you came back from the dead yourself. Once again, your battle instincts have proven to be unmatched…” 

Right then, some more laser cannons emerged from the ship’s walls to point right at us.

“But now this is the end for you!”

We rushed forward, with Hisoka deflecting all the laser blasts that he could and me just using my power armor to absorb their impact, all while aiming our weapons at him. 

The lasers stopped following us once we got within range of Slix Vigma, but he wasn’t through yet. He proceeded to dodge and block all of our moves. Every time I thought I could read where he was going to dodge Hisoka’s attacks and stab him, he just moved out of the way regardless. 

Hisoka, on the other hand, was so into it that he just kept going, and I realized that since he could only use his left hand to attack since his right was attached to mine, that probably explained why he was having more trouble. He certainly didn’t look troubled, though, even if he was trying to shoot Bungee Gum from his right hand yet the alien robot was able to dodge them all as well.

Just one hit was all it would take for him to be able to attach his Bungee Gum. That was his goal, wasn’t it? Just like it was for me. 

I needed to find some way to distract the guy long enough so Hisoka could get a hit in. Just one instant. What could I do, what I could I do…?

Think, think...Slix Vigma was expecting me to go after him this whole time. He knows I’m on Hisoka’s side, because we now have no choice. If one of us dies, then so does the other...if one of us gets hurt…

Wait.

Hisoka never seemed to react to pain, did he? 

It might hurt me, but...it was worth a shot.

I made a feint, pretending I was going to aim for Slix Vigma...but then swiftly turned my knife around and stabbed Hisoka in his right arm.

“AAAUGH!” I screamed, feeling the pain in my own right arm, forcing me to drop the knife. Why did I do that again…?

In the next instant, Slix Vigma leapt for me, with his hands aimed for my throat...and then suddenly, he was pulled away. 

“Thanks for the distraction, Annie. ♥”

It was Hisoka. He finally got a Bungee Gum strand on Slix Vigma thanks to me!

I gave him a thumbs up as best as I could. Good. My gamble paid off!

“What…?” Slix Vigma realized what had happened as he saw the Bungee Gum strapped to his back. He then glared at us. “You…!”

He didn’t get very far before being dragged around into the path of the lasers, taking all the hits. 

“Ah. You didn’t think our little Annie would be able to pull off such a bold move like that, even when both of our lives were tied together, didn’t you? Well, she takes after me more than you think, you know. ♣”

I made a mental note to reply back to that comment later on. Right now, we had a demonic evil alien robot to take down.

“Now, I believe that it is, as you say, the end for you.”

Hisoka pulled Slix Vigma back in, where we were waiting with our weapons at the ready, and there was no way he could escape.

“TAKE THIS!” I shouted.

Hisoka chopped off the guy’s head, while I stabbed him in the heart. Or at least as close to a heart the guy had. 

Turned out he really was a machine just the whole time. An extremely intelligent machine, way farther advanced than anything I’d ever known. 

As his parts clattered, the entire ship we were standing in evaporated in a cloud of Nen, forcing us and them to fall to the ground of the central control room. The next thing we knew, the glowing red chain binding our arms had also evaporated in a similar cloud.

“We’re free…” I gasped, out of breath. 

Hisoka licked his lips. “Oooh...That was so exciting~.” 

I just sat there, not really caring about Hisoka’s fight boner at the moment. What was more important was that we not only took on that evil alien robot, but we actually managed to beat him and get away with our lives. No longer would Hunter of Hunters ever be a thing.

“We did it...we beat him!” I cheered. “We beat Slix Vigma!”

**To be continued...**


	12. A Promise That'll Never Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie and Hisoka escape the self-destructing Megacruiser and get out alive, along with the rest of the aliens aboard escaping to their home planets. They spend the next few nights together before finally parting ways, and make a promise to each other that they’ll never forget.

 

As it turned out, we didn’t have time to celebrate our victory for long.

The ground suddenly started shaking, and we heard an alarm blaring along with red flashing lights. 

“I think this ship is about to blow!” I said, helping Hisoka get back up. “Let’s hurry!”

“Well, Slix Vigma did say that he controlled everything on this ship, so I was wondering what would happen if we did kill him.” 

Of course Hisoka would still be as nonchalant as ever. At least I was able to drag him along as I ran out of the room, trying to find some way out.

“Couldn’t you just use your Galaxy Quest ability to fly us out of here, Annie?”

“Yeah, I thought of that…” I replied. “But given how big this ship is, we’d probably be crushed if we tried that right now. I’d like to find the exit to this place first. And besides…I hope those alien guys can get out of here just fine.”

\----------------------

As it turned out, they were all already gone by time we reached the room where we last saw the alien warriors. All that was left were all the shackles that Slix Vigma put on them, all now suddenly open and empty. I guessed that as soon as we killed him, everyone was automatically free.

“Annie? Hisoka? What are you two still doing here? The escape pods are this way!”

We turned around. It was Technorg! I wondered if maybe he hung around because he was concerned about us.

Hisoka smiled. “Thanks for the tip~. Annie here was worried about you, so we wanted to make sure you all were able to get away.”

Technorg smirked. “Heh, thanks, but no thanks. We can take care of ourselves. At any rate, it seems you two managed to actually beat Slix Vigma when no one else could. So...we owe you our lives.”

I was getting jumpy, and not just because this guy was even more buff than Hisoka and towered over both of us. “Ah, thanks, but shouldn’t we be getting to those escape pods now?”

“Of course. Follow me.”

Thank god we bothered to go check on that room in the first place. For a moment, it looked like it was going to be pointless, but since this guy hung around, we were able to be guided to the escape pod room without blundering around into dead ends or anything. Gosh knows that was hard enough without falling down every few minutes since the Megacruiser was shaking so much, and I even had to conjure up my armor since there were a few times when I thought a part of the ceiling was going to fall on me.

As soon as we got there, though, we found that there was only one escape pod left. All the others around the room had already been jettisoned off. 

Much to my surprise, though, Technorg was just standing there to the side, not moving at all. 

I looked at him in surprise. “What’s wrong? Go right ahead.”

“No, you two were the ones who beat Slix Vigma. You deserve to go more than I do.”

Before I could argue back, Hisoka placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for your consideration. However, Annie has a Nen ability that will allow us to fly out of here, so you don’t need to worry~.”

It had just occurred to me that this was the first time I was actually able to talk with an alien besides Slix Vigma...and I had just said something dumb. Go me.

“Oh, right.” I slapped my face. “Sorry. Anyway, let me show you! Come on, Hisoka.”

I dragged him away to the center of the room and then conjured up the spaceship, surprising the alien warrior in front of us. I waved to him. “Now go! Don’t worry about us! We can take it from here.”

When I was sure Technorg was headed into the escape pod, I then steered the ship to fly out through one of the chutes where an escape pod had already been ejected from. 

Only to find that there was a dead end up ahead.

But before I could try and stop the ship, Hisoka simply said, “Keep going. We can make it. ♦”

I gulped and braced for impact. I knew that this chute was supposed to lead outside the ship, and I figured the reason that there was a dead end here was to keep oxygen in the ship in the first place when the Megacruiser would be sailing through space, but I had no idea how thick the wall here was. 

Not like we had much of a choice, though, what with the entire ship about to blow up and all. It was even leaning like crazy.

KA-BLAM!

We made it! We were out! I was so relieved to discover that familiar blue sky waiting for us instead of, oh, I dunno, actual outer space. Thank goodness Slix Vigma hadn’t left the planet yet. Come to think of it, I probably should have been worried about that from the start, but after everything that had happened, what with Hisoka dying and coming back to life and Slix Vigma going back on his promises and all that, I had more important things to be distracted by.

I floored it, full speed ahead, so that we could escape that flaming wreckage of a ship that was about to go down.

The farther away we got from the Megacruiser, the more relieved I became...until I remembered something terrible. “Oh shit!”

“What is it, Annie?”

I turned to him. “Hisoka! The Megacruiser was hovering above Yorknew City all this time, right?”

He didn’t even need to ask to realize what was up. “...Oh. ♠” For the first time ever, I noticed he was visibly rattled.

I turned the ship around, ready to see if we could do anything to stop it.

...Only to realize that the ship wasn’t headed for Yorknew City at all. Instead, it looked as though it were actively flying away from it, even though it was still exploding and crumbling the whole time.

“...Is it headed for...Meteor City?” I asked, squinting in the distance towards the junkyard city where it looked like the Megacruiser was going.

“Possibly…”

I sighed in relief. “Oh, good! At least nobody lives there.”

“Ah, yes...no one there, indeed…” Hisoka smiled, though I thought it looked a bit strange. “But even if there was, I’m sure they’d be able to handle it just fine. ♥”

I turned to him, looking confused. “...Okay...if you say so.”

\----------------------

Nevertheless, we managed to land safely on the ground right outside our old hideaway, since it wasn’t like there was any other place for us to go. Even though it was still the middle of the day, if not early afternoon, we were tired out after all of the excitement from earlier, so we pretty much just crashed right then and there. Or at least I did, anyway. I wasn’t so sure about Hisoka since he seemed like he was still full of energy when I last saw him.

...I should know.

I don’t quite remember what I dreamed about, because once again, I ended up forgetting the whole thing, because the next thing I knew…

“Annie. Wake up~.”

Hisoka was there, crowding up the bed as usual. 

I rubbed my eyes. “Nngh...what time is it?” Ever since my iPhone burned down in that fire, I haven’t been able to check the time since. Speaking of which...

“Almost sunrise. You’ve been sleeping in for 16 hours straight, so I figured I should probably wake you up before you get too ahead of yourself, there. ♥”

I pouted. “Hey, cut me some slack here. I managed to survive a crazy death game, beat an evil alien robot, piloted a spaceship out of an exploding Megacruiser, and saved your sorry ass several times over by now. I hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, either, so I think I deserve it.”

“Ah, yes.” He smiled. “So how should I thank you, then? Perhaps you would like another go? ♥”

“Tempting…” I nodded. “But before you bother getting me in the mood, there’s one more thing you need to know. Now that we’re not in said crazy death game anymore.”

“And what’s that?”

I took in as much of a breath as I could before shouting, “YOU STILL OWE ME A NEW APARTMENT! AND A COMPUTER! AND AN IPHONE! AND EVERYTHING ELSE YOU OWE ME WHEN YOU BURNED DOWN MY APARTMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU ASSHOLE!!”

\------------------------

Thankfully, he got the message. Or at least he assured me he did, which could have honestly meant anything. 

I did enjoy the rest of my time with him as best as I could, though, because I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was going to leave soon. In fact, he told me several times over the course of this game that he normally wouldn’t hang around any one person for this long, but because of the whole survival game scenario, it forced his hand this one time. Or at least, that was the feeling I clearly got from his behavior, as well as how he described Transmuters like himself.

Sure enough, he told me to come meet him outside the hideaway shortly after that, and when I went up, there he was, sitting on a nearby rock. He was staring at the horizon, where it was becoming brighter all the time, as if lost in thought.

Huh. That was weird. Normally he’d be busy stacking up a house of cards on the ground or something playful like that.

“Hisoka…” I waved out to him, but hesitated.

He turned around. “Oh, Annie. Come here, have a seat…”

I did so, figuring that this was going to be what I thought it would be about. Though I was still pretty surprised with how serious he was being about the whole thing.

“You probably already know what this is going to be about, don’t you? I know.” He nodded. “It was my idea to hang around you in the first place because all the other contestants were out to kill you, and I didn’t want to lose out on any of the fights if I could help it.”

I looked at the ground. “Thanks...I mean, I feel like I really should thank you for that. If it weren't for you keeping me alive all this time, I never would have made it to the end. Jenna would have shanked me from the very start, and I’d be lying in a pool of blood in the middle of that alley or something, if it weren’t for you…”

I hugged my knees. “But all the same...it’s kind of also hard to thank you for all of that when I know you only did it just to fight everyone else. And then when I could suddenly use Nen, train me so that you could have the most intense fight you could against me...and even then, as it turned out, you were wanting to fight Slix Vigma all along.”

Then I turned to him again. “I guess you wanted to fight him so badly that you even planned for the off chance that I’d actually end up killing you. And not only that, but you’re more powerful than ever.”

“Ah…I should probably correct you there,” he said. “For a while there, I had it planned both ways, though my original intention was to kill you all along.”

I gulped, and took a step back.

He laughed. “No, no, not now! Back then, during our fight in the stadium. Originally, I thought about killing you, and then challenging Slix Vigma after that. And then maybe if I felt like it, reviving you after the fact. But...”

I looked down at my hands. “...I killed you, didn’t I?”

“Correction. I *let* you kill me, at the very end there.”

“...What?” I looked at him in disbelief. Now that he mentioned it…

“When you were down for the count, begging for your life...I very easily could have ended you right then and there. And indeed, if you didn’t fight back and make that last move at the end, I honestly would have. But...then you did, and I felt everything in that move. Everything you felt about me...ha ha, even when applying a condition to strengthen your ability, you still can’t lie to me. ♥”

I looked down to the ground and turned away, embarrassed. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come now, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I just knew you couldn’t keep your hands off of me. ♥” It really wasn’t helping that he was wrapping an arm over my shoulder and dragging me in so that I couldn’t escape.

“Sh—shut up…” Good lord, I couldn’t afford to look at that smug grin on his face.

“Anyway...the other reason I let you kill me, of course, was that I would become more powerful after death. Sure, you would too if I revived you, but, see, you feel pain. I don’t. Even if I wanted to get your help in fighting Slix Vigma, it still wouldn’t have been pretty~. That being said, however, I could only let you kill me if you actually fought back and made it look convincing enough. If I lost to you too easily, Slix Vigma surely would have noticed that something was up. ♠ So that was why I told you to fight me to the end, or else I’d torture you for it.”

I let out a sigh of relief that I didn't even know I was holding in. “...I guess it was a good thing that things worked out the way they did, after all.”

I then turned towards the sky, looking rather wistfully. “...So what now, then?”

“Ah, yes.” He stood up. “The whole reason I was even here in Yorknew City to begin with was to meet up with some...comrades of mine. They said they’d be here on September 1st. And as you well know, today is September 1st. So we’ll have to part ways, starting today.”

I sighed, and hung my head in despair. “...I figured as much. But I still don’t know what to do. My apartment’s been burned to the ground, I haven’t been able to talk with Selena in three months, my bosses probably won’t rehire me after all this time, or maybe they would, I don’t know, and except for the whole Nen powers thing, I’m pretty much back to square one. If not even worse.”

Then I laughed bitterly. “Ha ha...I guess I never even expected to actually live after yesterday. I was so sure that no matter how hard I fought, you actually would kill me, and that the best I could hope for is not being killed in a slow, painful way like you said. But now here I am again. It’s like, why do I even bother living, anyway? Just to avoid dying painfully, apparently. I guess I’m just a sucker for slow, less painful deaths out in the real world.”

“Oh?” Hisoka eyed me crossly. “If money’s what you’re concerned about, then that’s no longer an issue, now that you can use Nen! For starters, have you considered fighting on the first 200 floors of Heaven’s Arena?”

“What? Heaven’s Arena? You can’t be serious.” I scoffed. “Wasn’t that the place for pro fighters?”

“I’ll let you in on a tip. Nen users take up the top 55 floors. But those floors are only for glory, so if you want to make money, you could just easily stay on the first floors and wipe the competition. You don't even need your power armor! Just put aura in your fists and punch them, and you’re all good! I should know. I’ve been there, right before I moved to Yorknew City and got caught up in this survival game.”

“Hmm…” I couldn’t tell how much Hisoka was exaggerating and how much of that was actually true. Especially given how strong, fearless, and immune to pain he was. But… “...It’s certainly worth looking into.”

“Wonderful! And even if that’s not your cup of tea, there are plenty of Hunter’s Association jobs who will hire you if you can use Nen.”

I blinked. “Wait. The Hunter’s Association? I thought they only hired licensed Hunters.”

Hisoka laughed. “Think about it, Annie! If most years, only one to seven people pass the Hunter Exam, then there couldn’t possibly be enough Licensed Hunters out there to make it worth having the jobs open only to them! And even if that were the case, those Licensed Hunters still need to learn Nen in order to even take the jobs in the first place. Therefore, since Nen users outnumber Licensed Hunters 100 to one, and only up to one in 100 people can even be Nen users in the first place, the Association has to allow any and every Nen user who wants a job. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize this earlier?”

“Well, how was I supposed to know about any of this if this was supposed to be kept a secret from ‘normal people’? I didn’t know what Nen even *was* until this whole thing went down!” I replied, throwing up my arms in the air.

“Ah, right. Fair point~.” 

He then wrapped an arm around me once again and gestured to the rising sun. “But you see, Annie...this is the true beauty of being a Nen user. The amount of freedom you earn! The world gets a whole lot bigger for you! You can go anywhere, and do anything, living the way you want. It’s a wonderful feeling; one that I’ve enjoyed ever since I discovered my own powers for the very first time. ♥”

I looked all around, from Yorknew City behind us to the sunrise and coast ahead, and still farther away, the rest of the wide world. Maybe that was what all that training he put me through these past three months was for. Not just to get through the survival game, but to be able to have that sort of freedom in the first place.

I then began to tear up, and turned my face away from him.

“Annie? I know you’re trying to hide something from me~.”

“DAMN IT, Hisoka!” I shouted, not able to take it anymore. “You’re a terrible person, but right now, you’re being so nice to me...How the hell am I supposed to deal with that!? How am I not supposed to miss you already, knowing you’re going to leave, and we’ll probably never see each other again…?”

I hugged him again, burying my face in his chest once again, even though I knew it was only a couple days ago, but it felt like an eternity. “I hate you! I hate you so much that I’d never marry you even if you were the last person around! But I don’t want to leave you, either...just, why? Why are you doing this to me…?”

“Whoever said this is the last time we’ll ever see each other? ♦”

I looked back up at him, drying my tears. “Wait...what…?”

“Oh, Annie, you know me better than that!” He held up my face in mock disappointment. “I told you that if I had my way in this survival game, I’d keep you alive for even longer than three months so I’d have another toy to play with. Did you really think that would change just because we beat Slix Vigma at his own game?”

“Uuuh…” I couldn’t admit it to his face, but I did kind of forget. “...Maybe?”

“Naughty girl. I would punish you, but I’ll have to save that for the next time we meet. But for now…” He smirked. “Don’t even think about giving up on life. Don’t die before I do. And if you do...well, let’s just say that I’m still within my right to punish you for that, too.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little, already feeling better. “How the hell are you going to punish me if I’m dead?”

“Again! Did you forget how I can use my Bungee Gum now? And even if that doesn’t work because you’ve been dead for too long, I’ll find a way. Oooh, you bet I will. ♦”

I wasn’t entirely sure if he was bluffing or not, but given how over the course of this survival game, I’ve seen many impossible things being made possible with the power of Nen, I figured I might as well give him the benefit of the doubt. So I only nodded and gulped. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Besides, the next time I see you, we’re going to fight once more. And I’ll expect to see how much stronger you’ve gotten since then. If you can accomplish this much in three months, then who knows how far will you go from here?”

“Ah, yeah…” I looked at him sheepishly. “...And, ah...I don’t suppose it would be too much to hope for us to be able to do, uh...more than fighting, right?”

He winked and pinched my butt. “What did you expect? ♥”

I laughed and hugged him one more time, whispering in his ear. “...It’s a promise, right?”

“Indeed. And unlike with Slix Vigma, it’s one I don’t intend to break~.”

\-------------------

The next thing I knew, he was off, walking towards Yorknew City in the distance and leaving me behind. I had already gotten all of the stuff I had left packed into boxes, and now that I had my Galaxy Quest ability, carrying it all around wouldn’t be an issue. 

This was it. A new beginning. A chance to start all over again. It might not have been in the way I was expecting or hoping for, but it was still something I was willing to take. And after the horrible luck I had being dragged through that terrifying death game, I needed some good luck to balance out the bad. 

That being said, this death game was way worse than most people ever had to deal with in their lives. Ten of the contestants had died, and just because me and Hisoka were the only ones to live didn’t excuse how their lives and surely the lives of their families had been torn apart. Irreparably so. 

It was up to me to live for them. 

And even though I managed to survive thanks to Hisoka, I didn’t come out unscathed. No one in their right mind would. Except for someone like Hisoka, of course, since his mind already wasn’t right to begin with. 

I had killed a person. In fact, I had killed two people with my own hands and many others with Hisoka mostly helping me. I had hoped that Hisoka would have been the last victim, but if the world of Nen users was any indicator, this might not be the last time I would have to do so. I could only pray that I wouldn’t have to do it too much.

Mentally, I could tell that even I had become a little crazy myself, thanks to it all. I wouldn’t say I was nearly so far gone as Hisoka, since that guy was on a completely different planet, but I’d be lying if I said that I couldn’t at least see in some way where he was coming from now. But how could anyone not be, after all the horror we had been through? Their faces would haunt me for the rest of my life. Maybe that was why Hisoka stopped caring about this a long time ago.

And of course, the kicker here was that despite how terrible Hisoka was, ever since the events of this incident, I’d never be able to bring myself to completely hate him. If anything, I’d come crawling back to him one of these days, just as he predicted. And not just because he was so good in bed that he probably ruined me for the rest of my life in that sense. Hah. Not that I was particularly interested in boyfriends to begin with, but good luck if I ever started looking anytime in the near future.

And with all that in mind...I think whatever motivation I might have had to work on my current books had long been thrown out the window, due to being more focused on surviving. Even if I were to try and go back to it, I’d never be able to look at my work with the same type of naive idealism anymore. So I figured I might take a break from that while I recover from all this.

I looked down at my new wallet. With all of the money Hisoka gave me to pay back what he owed, I’d be able to find a new apartment easily while I looked for Hunter jobs, or even travel to Heaven’s Arena if I wanted. I was still thinking about that. But first, I had to give someone a call.

I was surprised earlier when Hisoka showed that he had been keeping my iPhone on him the entire past three months, just in case I was still alive after all of this. But he did say that he was never able to unlock the phone, so at least the secrets I had there were ones he could never find out about me. Of course I didn’t like how he even tried messing with my phone in the first place, but that was somewhat comforting, at least.

So I brought out my old phone and scrolled to Selena in my contacts list. Now that Slix Vigma’s Nen bombs were no longer a thing anymore, I had to tell her the truth. I had to tell her everything had had happened. All about the survival game, all about the contestants whose lives were torn apart, all about my new Nen powers...and all about Hisoka.

Soon enough, she picked up the phone. “ANNIE!? IS THAT YOU!? Oh my god, it’s been three months! What the hell happened to you!? What about Hisoka? What about that guy who tried to kill us?”

I just stood there and took it all in, glad to finally hear her voice.

“Hey, are you even there!?”

“Yes, Selena, I’m here. Calm down, and listen, all right?”

I could hear her take a deep breath over the phone. “...Okay, I’m listening...”

“Are you sure? Listen carefully.” I smiled, looking up at the clear blue morning sky, feeling more content than I ever had been. “Because you’ll never believe what I’m about to say.”

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah, and that's the end! It feels so weird having finished this entire story three months ago and only releasing one chapter a week, but it did allow me to make enough minor edits to make it read better. And to think all of this came from me simply wondering what it would be like to be up against Hisoka in a Future Diary-esque death game.
> 
> As for if I'll write anything else on this site, well...it'll be on an "if my brain comes up with a new idea" basis, which is extremely rare, hahaha. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.


End file.
